ISD Solutions is completing work on a new frozen food distribution centre for frozen food retailer Farmfoods. 

The 175,000sq ft facility at Avonmouth, Bristol, will provide Farmfoods with a frozen warehouse solution to support its UK wide store network.

With steel and concrete work undertaken by main contractor Winvic Construction, ISD Solutions was chosen for its expertise in the latest single envelope composite panel construction techniques and ability to deliver a high performance, sustainable solution, with extremely low running costs. The design requires significantly less supporting steelwork to conventional cold storage warehouses, while build time and costs are further reduced, as the cold store is formed as the building envelope is constructed.

Incorporating frozen and ambient storage facilities as well as office space, the distribution centre will equip Farmfoods with one of the greenest, thermally efficient retail distribution centres of its type in the UK.

Managing director of ISD Solutions, Tony Wall, said: ”Environmental considerations had really taken a back seat in the construction industry for the past few years, but now we are focusing on sustainable construction and sourcing as many UK suppliers as possible to help us offer our clients, such as Farmfoods ‘greener’, more energy efficient buildings to reduce their carbon footprint.”

With this commitment, ISD Solutions has incorporated a range of high performance and sustainable materials including Dow Styrofoam floor insulation, Kingspan controlled environment insulated panels, together with the latest advanced polymer TPE roof waterproofing solution from IKO Polymeric. All of these are HCFC free, with a zero Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP) and are fully recyclable. Sourcing UK materials has helped to reduce further programmes times and contributes to a lower carbon footprint for the building. Multi vault roof lights covering 15% of the total ambient roof area will also provide natural lighting to provide further savings on running costs.

Simon Girardier managing director of Winvic Construction said: “The project for Farmfoods delivers a technically advanced, sustainable solution. ISD Solutions has made a perfect construction partner, bringing a depth of experience and the right level of resources to achieve project goals on time and in budget.”

Farmfoods’ property development manager, William Scanlon, said: “Maintaining our frozen food in perfect condition is crucial to Farmfoods. So too is our ability to do so in the most energy efficient way possible and our new facility in Bristol will enable us to continue to achieve these aims.” 

Ian Hooke, construction director of Project Developers Roxhill, added: “We approached ISD because, while Roxhill has vast experience in distribution envelope construction, we wanted to go with a specialist single envelope constructor who would work with our brief and so chose ISD because of their strong track record of delivering highly detailed air tight and thermally efficient temperature controlled envelopes. This time we also wanted to combine a thermally efficient building with as green a solution as possible to reduce the carbon footprint and energy usage of such a specialist building.”