Huppa achieved the Award for the Logistics Project of the Year 2025 for his project ‘Skyfall’. This company originated in 2023 from the merger between Upfresh and Franky Fresh Food. In the run -up to the merger, logistics – and not least – played a leading role in Ostend – a cooled fully automatic baking warehouse in Ostend.
Huppa was created by the merger of two family wholesalers in fresh food with a strong local anchoring: Upfresh in Ostend (from the Depuydt family) and Franky Fresh Food in Wortegem-Petegem (entirely in the hands of the Willy Naessens Group). Both were active – with some emphasis differences – in the distribution of fresh food products on butchers, delicatessen stores, independent supermarkets, retail plants and food service companies.
From a logistics, the merger placed both companies for a huge challenge. Not only their systems and processes had to be integrated, but also choices had to be made to combine the infrastructure of both companies and to optimize the flows.
Yves Depuydt (with the trophy in his hands), CEO of Huppa: “Automation is more than just placing a machine. You have to look at the entire flow.”
Similar yet different
At Upfresh, distribution was made from a central warehouse in Ostend, where customer orders with products from three conditioning (ambient, cooled and freezer) are prepared and sent, and from two extra Crossdock Hubs (Sint-Katelijne-Waver and Barchon) for the final journeys to customers throughout Belgium.
Franky Fresh Food had a quasi-equivalent set-up with a central warehouse in Wortegem-Petegem and Extra Crossdock Hubs in Huizingen and Dessel. Unlike Upfresh, Franky Fresh Food sorted his final milk runs decentralized in the hubs, who each have their own sorting installation for this.
Review of Walking Project
When the merger was discussed, UpFresh was already working on a major modernization project for the Central Warehouse in Ostend. On a limited footprint of 2,600 m², a cooled fully automatic baking warehouse of 24 meters high was built. It was equipped with an ASRS system (Automated Storage and Retrieval) for 50,000 bins, good to achieve a 70% growth.
Huppa offers a range of more than 12,000 fresh products. In addition to the DC in Ostend, it has six hubs to cover the whole of Belgium.
The merger showed that the capacity of the DC in Ostend, despite that foreseen growth margin of 70%, would be insufficient. The capacity had to take a 100% growth into account by integrating the distribution of Franky Fresh Food. That is why the original project was reviewed. On the basis of various improvement processes, Huppa still managed to build in that 100% growth. There was an extra challenge to realize this project without disturbing daily operations.
That Huppa succeeded in this was largely due to ‘Logistics Architect’ Logflow from Oostkamp. That consultancy and engineering company had been working with both Upfresh and Franky Fresh Food for years and was already-for the merger-working for both companies on working out a state-of-the-art solution. This facilitated the bringing together of both routes. The project in Ostend was all the furthest advanced and in 2022 – a year for the merger – TGW had already been chosen as a technology partner.
The jury appreciated the daring choice to select the various partners – albeit in collaboration with a logistics architect – and to bring them together in one process.
View full flow
“Automation is more than just placing a machine. You have to look at the entire flow,” says Yves Depuydt, CEO of Huppa. That is why the company and Logflow worked together with various specialized suppliers, each with its own expertise. These included TGW for the ASRS shuttles, the conveyors and palletisers, C&W for the WMS, Arco for the cooling installations and Schiphorst for the bins. In addition, not only the warehouse was taken care of, but also innovative solutions achieved for picking and organizing both the inbound and outbound flows. The final ‘go-live’ took place in September 2024.
In addition to the substantial expansion of capacity, the jury appreciated the daring choice to select the various partners – albeit in collaboration with a logistics architect – and to bring them together in one process. “Often the technology partner chooses the suppliers, which means that the client has less grip on the entire project. Here Huppa was able to optimize the Flows maximum by handling the conductor stick himself,” summarized a jury member.
Second laureate: ECS
ECS realized in Zeebrugge a fully automatic rail -connected Highbay that replaces three, partly rented warehouses. The fragmentation made the planning difficult and increased the number of transport movements. Due to the centralization in a new state-of-the art facility, two rental warehouses could be closed and the capacity was increased to 160,000 pallet places. This resulted in a major efficiency gain and a considerable EBITDA growth. Thanks to the rail connection, 30% truck rides per year to the VK and Ireland are avoided.
Third laureate: Shipit
Shipit Multimodal Logistics introduced a new concept for the construction sector in the city: ‘Just in Time – Just in Place’. This aims at a better organization of the supply of construction yards. From a water -related hub near the center of Brussels, orders are delivered directly on the right floor or apartment where the installation takes place the next day, instead of in bulk on site on inappropriate times. As a result, the quality of delivery rises from 45% (business as usual) to 95%. The supply chain is also digitized, which is only exceptionally in the sector.
