California Natural Products Unveils Most Technologically Advanced Warehouse In U.S. Food Industry

LATHROP, Calif., March 5, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- In its ongoing commitment to lead industry innovation, California Natural Products (CNP), manufacturer of more than 400 foods and beverages, including household brands as well as emerging labels such as CalNaturale Svelte® USDA Organic protein shakes and CalNaturale® wine, today unveiled its new automated facility—the most technologically advanced warehouse in the food and beverage industry. The 18,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility, designed and built by the premier automated warehouse solutions provider Power Automation Systems (PAS), was created to increase efficiency while reducing environmental impact by cutting energy use by approximately 80 percent and improving upon the facility's spatial footprint by about 90 percent. With the warehouse facility enhancements, California Natural Products is poised to sustain impressive double-digit growth and remain a pioneer in food and beverage packaging.  

"As the leading aseptic packaging organization in North America, we are committed to innovation and spearheading food technology trends," said Pat Mitchell, president and founder of California Natural Products. "Our new automated warehouse not only helps us to expand our manufacturing capacity and increase overall efficiencies but also helps to lower production costs and minimize negative environmental impacts while saving natural resources. With more and more companies placing a higher value on sustainability, California Natural Products' ability to deliver both high quality and volume makes their switch to sustainable packaging an easy decision."

The new CNP warehouse features PowerStor®, the world's most innovative and sustainable automated warehouse storage solution that has the highest storage density, highest throughput, greatest flexibility, and lowest energy usage in existence. Located directly across the road from the company's existing food manufacturing and packaging plant, the state-of-the-art warehouse features an enclosed overhead bridge that loops the products loaded onto pallets from the manufacturing facility to the storage warehouse using a high-speed, flexible pallet delivery system that is controlled through PASWare™ warehouse control system software. The scalable space accommodates nearly 9,000 pallet positions across 12 PowerStor^® levels that span 90 feet in the air. With this new system, the loaded System Staging Carts (SSC) in the PowerStage^® system travel up to 600 feet per minute, nearly doubling cost efficiency over standard warehouses, maximizing space utilization, and reducing operating expenses, while also decreasing the carbon footprint. Furthermore, based on cutting-edge robotics operating throughout the entire warehouse system, the fully automated cart and lift-based storage and retrieval system (CTVL) will help improve inventory control as well as safety and security systems by reducing human error.

"In designing our warehouse solutions to fit the specific needs of California Natural Products, we kept the company's aggressive growth strategy and commitment to sustainability front-of-mind, as well as the need to house products from dozens of national brands—all with plans to continue to grow," said Rodney Tipton, president of Power Automation Systems. "Our revolutionary design addresses California Natural Products' ongoing needs and keeps the company on the cutting edge, by providing for high throughput of large quantities of multiple size loads, while simultaneously improving productivity, speed, accuracy, and flexibility throughout the warehouse system."

The new warehouse comes off the heels of the company's recent introduction of the innovative Tetra Gemina® Aseptic package, a breakthrough product designed to bring the high quality of Tetra aseptic packaging to multi-serve beverage and liquid products. CNP's facility is the only one in North America to utilize the Tetra Gemina packaging machinery, signifying the company's continued leadership in the category.

To learn more about California Natural Products, visit www.cnp.com.  

About California Natural Products

California Natural Products (CNP) produces a broad range of nutritional non-dairy beverages, nutritional drinks, soups, broths, teas, coconut waters and wine—all in environmentally sustainable flexible packages supplied by Tetra Pak^®. CNP also makes a wide array of natural and organic ingredients used in hundreds of leading food products. The company was founded in 1980 by Pat Mitchell, a third-generation family farmer, and is headquartered on the original Mitchell property in Northern California. CNP has developed many of the industry's iconic, best-loved products, which are currently found in nearly every supermarket and natural foods store in the country. In 2009, CNP entered the branded products market with CalNaturale® wine, made with organic grapes, and CalNaturale Svelte® USDA Organic protein shakes. For more information, visit www.cnp.com.

About Power Automation Systems

Power Automation Systems is the leading innovator of automated warehouse products and solutions. A global company with headquarters and manufacturing in Northern California, Power Automation Systems maximizes warehouse effectiveness with the world's most innovative automated warehouse storage solution family, PowerStor®. The most sustainable option available today, the PowerStor® system optimizes a facility by providing the highest density, highest throughput and greatest flexibility.

SOURCE California Natural Products