Smarter Cold Storage: How Robotics and Refrigeration Are Reshaping Fulfillment

The next generation of grocery fulfillment is not simply about adding more automation. It is about designing facilities where automation and refrigeration work together.

HelloFresh offers a strong example of where the industry is heading. The meal kit company recently expanded its use of robotics within a chilled fulfillment facility in Phoenix. Working with Locus Robotics, HelloFresh increased the chilled operation’s capacity from approximately 100 SKUs to 500 SKUs. The robotic system now supports roughly 12,000 square feet of temperature-controlled fulfillment space.

For grocery retailers, meal kit providers and other food businesses exploring dark stores and dedicated fulfillment centers, the lesson goes beyond robotics. As these facilities become more automated, refrigeration infrastructure needs to evolve alongside them.

The Dark Store Is Becoming a Different Kind of Facility

Dark stores and fulfillment centers have a fundamentally different purpose than traditional grocery stores. They are designed around product movement rather than the customer experience. That creates an opportunity to rethink the entire building.

Instead of designing refrigerated areas primarily around shopper access, operators can consider the most efficient path from inventory storage to picking, packing, and dispatch. Automation can reduce unnecessary movement throughout that process.

HelloFresh demonstrates what that can look like. The company initially deployed 13 robots for its Factor brand in July 2025. Within three months, it added another 26. The robots can support tasks from order induction through box drop-off, with an average fulfillment time of three minutes and 36 seconds during the initial deployment.

This type of automation can become particularly valuable as grocery e-commerce operations add more products. A larger assortment creates more picking locations, more employee movement, and greater operational complexity. Robotics can help manage that complexity without requiring facilities to continuously expand labor at the same rate.

Refrigeration and Robotics Need to Be Planned Together

Placing robots inside a cold environment is not as simple as moving standard warehouse automation into a refrigerated room. Temperature affects equipment.

HelloFresh and Locus Robotics had to account for reduced battery efficiency caused by colder operating conditions. Locus developed heated motor enhancements and modified charging systems to help its robots perform reliably within the refrigerated environment.

That illustrates an important consideration for future fulfillment centers: automation and refrigeration should be treated as one operational system rather than two separate investments.

A highly automated picking system cannot deliver its full potential if refrigeration layouts create bottlenecks. Likewise, a well-designed cold storage facility may not reach maximum productivity if workers or robots must travel inefficient routes between products.

The best facilities can be designed around both. Refrigerated zones can be positioned around product velocity. High-demand products can remain closer to picking and packing areas. Automated systems can move orders through those zones while employees concentrate on tasks where human involvement provides greater value. The result is a facility designed around product flow.

Automation Can Make Cold Space More Productive

Refrigerated square footage is valuable. Operators need to think beyond simply having enough cold storage capacity. They need to consider how effectively that space is being used.

Automation can help increase the productivity of refrigerated areas.

An earlier example comes from The Giant Company, which developed an automated e-commerce fulfillment center with separate systems for ambient and chilled products. Robots retrieve products and move them toward employees responsible for completing orders. The facility was designed to handle significantly higher order volumes than traditional store-based fulfillment with lowering picking and packing costs.

That model points toward a broader strategy for grocery fulfillment. Instead of asking, “How much refrigerated space do we need?”, operators should also ask, “How much fulfillment can we generate from the refrigerated space we have?”

Robotics can change that equation. When employees spend less time walking long aisles or transporting individual orders, facilities can process greater volumes through the same footprint. That becomes especially important in dark stores and micro-fulfillment environments where available space may be limited.

Flexible Refrigeration Can Support Flexible Automation

Automation strategies are also becoming more adaptable.

HelloFresh’s rollout began as a relatively small pilot before expanding rapidly. That approach allows businesses to prove the concept before committing to a much larger operation. Refrigeration infrastructure should be capable of supporting a similar strategy.

A company testing a new dark store, expanding an e-commerce operation, or introducing robotic fulfillment may not immediately know what its long-term refrigeration requirements will be. Product assortment could change. Order volume could increase faster than expected. Additional chilled picking zones may be required.

This is where refrigeration-as-a-service can become part of the fulfillment strategy.

Temporary and long-term refrigerated solutions can provide additional cold storage or operational space while companies evaluate demand, install automation or expand existing facilities. Rather than waiting for permanent construction, businesses can create additional refrigerated capacity that supports changing operational requirements.

For an established fulfillment center, that could mean adding refrigerated space during an automation upgrade without disrupting existing operations.

For a new dark store, it could mean establishing cold storage capacity while the business determines the right permanent footprint.

For a rapidly growing operation, it could provide a link between current capacity and the next facility expansion.

Building the Fulfillment Center Around the Order

The most successful dark stores of the future may not look much like stores at all. They will increasingly be engineered around the order itself.

Inventory enters the facility, moves into the appropriate temperature zone and remains protected within the cold chain. Robotics and employees work together to pick products efficiently. Completed orders move toward packing and dispatch with as few unnecessary touches as possible.

Refrigeration keeps products at the required temperature throughout that journey. Automation keeps them moving.

HelloFresh’s expansion from 100 to 500 chilled SKUs demonstrates the potential. Greater fulfillment capacity does more than improve productivity. It can allow businesses to offer customers more products and create additional revenue opportunities.

That is ultimately why the integration of refrigeration and robotics matters.

Automation should not simply make an existing process faster. Refrigeration should not simply provide a cold room. When the two are planned together, businesses can create fulfillment operations that are more scalable, flexible and capable of supporting a much broader assortment.

As grocery e-commerce, meal delivery, and rapid fulfillment continue to develop, dark stores and fulfillment centers will need to process more products without sacrificing temperature control or operational efficiency. The opportunity is to build facilities where the cold chain and the fulfillment system operate as one.

For companies making that transition, Lowe Rental can provide flexible refrigerated capacity to support new facilities, automation projects and growing fulfillment operations. Refrigeration as a service gives operators the ability to add cold space as their strategy develops, helping keep products moving while permanent infrastructure catches up with growth.