Food & Beverage, Manufacturing

Quadrupling in size since 2015, Little Leaf Farms built a sophisticated, sustainable indoor growing facility on a 10-acre development that has changed the local lettuce landscape. Hydroponically grown greens without pesticides, harmful chemicals, or GMOs are planted, nourished, harvested, packed in containers, and labeled—completely hands-free. It’s delivered to local grocery stores within 24 hours of harvest, producing high-quality, ultra-fresh lettuce for New England year-round.

Why Radioshuttle™?

The Challenge

Efficient storage and movement of perishable products

”At Little Leaf Farms the goal really is to transform the way food’s grown. The biggest challenge we have is that it is a live product. Typically we ship out everything you see in here within 24 hours of harvest. The goal really was to find a way to streamline this process – how do we make a product that has a shelf life and has to get out the door very quickly, easy and accessible for the shippers to be able to load up trucks and keep product moving. Because it’s coming out almost twice as fast as we’re putting it away”, says Michael Yagodzinski, Corporate Materials Manager, Little Leaf Farms.

Once the containers are filled with freshly cut lettuce, workers in the manufacturing area immediately pack them into cases. The cases get stacked into pallets, shrink-wrapped, and moved into a height-restricted 4,300 sq/ft cold storage cooler. Little Leaf Farms needed an efficient and accessible way to store and move the two million-plus packages of lettuce the facility produces each month and deliver to a growing number of local retailers daily. Installing pallet flow racking was an obvious choice for their expanded new cooler that supports their onemillion- square-foot greenhouse. So, they sought quotes for racking from several vendors. Our partner and dealer, Abel Womack, however, proposed a different solution.

“We understood Little Leaf Farms’ process and knew they were serious about sustainable practices. So, rather than quote pallet flow racking, we presented a more unique solution that concentrates the storage footprint of their climate-controlled space and reduces energy costs. We demonstrated how Radioshuttle™, a semi-automated pallet shuttle system, increases operational efficiency by utilizing the full height of the building and deep lane racking maintains selectivity between all levels. The lanes are fed shrink-wrapped pallets by lift trucks. Easily operated via a hand-held remote control, pallets are loaded/unloaded into lanes, moving with more than twice the speed of conventional rack. It not only increases productivity, but it minimizes product damage by reducing product touches, and decreases labor costs,” says Carl Rezendes, Account Manager at Abel Womack.

The Solution

Leveraging Radioshuttle™ for high-density storage and increased efficiency

Little Leaf Farms implemented Radioshuttle™ in their cold storage cooler, consisting of eight lanes, two levels high, and 17 pallets deep. This provided a total of 238 pallet positions on the rails. Since they’re dealing with perishable products in the food and beverage industry, the workflow configuration used was first-in, first-out (FIFO). Radioshuttle™ comes with a work platform, battery charging station, and an extra set of lithiumion batteries to power the system for a minimum of 14-hour shifts.

”There is a learning curve, but the system is easy to operate. Plus, Radioshuttle™ works in all temperature zones, like a 34-degree °F cold storage cooler. When initially comparing Radioshuttle™ to traditional pallet flow racking, one of the key differences we pointed out is maintenance. Pallet flow racking rollers require service, which in turn, affects productivity. With Radioshuttle’s™ reliable and durable structure, there is virtually zero maintenance.”

The storage efficiency we gained from Radioshuttle™ has increased our pallet capacity six-fold.

Mike Yagodzinski, Corporate Materials Manager, Little Leaf Farms
The Result

Six-fold increase in storage capacity and streamlined operations

Providing engineering services, project management, and installation, Abel Womack worked with this thriving indoor grower to streamline their shipping and receiving operations as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. Little Leaf Farms initially had seven SKUs and two carts, but soon after added a third cart with no disruptions. If they add additional greens to their mix of offerings in the future, Radioshuttle™ provides the flexibility to easily accommodate more SKUs.

By implementing Radioshuttle™, Little Leaf Farms optimized their warehouse operations, ensuring efficient high-density storage for their rapidly expanding food and beverage industry production.

6x
storage capacity