Red Gold, Inc. is excited to announce a new 250,000-square-foot warehouse connected to their one-million-square-foot Distribution Center on State Road 28 in Alexandria, Indiana. “We broke ground on the warehouse in November of 2021, and we are excited to bring this project to completion,” said Brian Reichart, President, and CEO. “The new building has 14 dock doors to support Red Gold’s manufacturing growth and adds 82 additional truck-trailer parking spaces for our customers picking up loads or parking for Red Gold’s RG Transport fleet,” said Brian.

The new building houses a huge high-tech racking system that stores hundreds of tomato products to serve Red Gold’s grocery chain customers better. “Racking for pallets of tomato products is 53 lanes wide, 23 pallets deep, and 5 levels high…that’s 8,215 total pallets in our racking system alone,” said Mike Herrmann, Director of Engineering. “The new building and DC also received 68 new Wireless Access Points to make sure all the new technology is connected to the forklifts and shuttles, allowing them to move seamlessly throughout the connected facilities,” Mike said.

The new addition connects to the Red Gold tomato processing plant in Orestes, allowing finished goods to be transported to the existing Alexandria Distribution Center. “By connecting our factory to the DC and utilizing this innovative system, we are able to remove 9,000 semi-truck trips (annually) between Orestes and the Distribution Center on State Road 28, alleviating the amount of truck traffic for the town of Orestes,” said Beau Reichart, Chief Operations Officer for Red Gold. “This project also features new automated rack shuttles (skid movers) which are remote controlled. These robots move skids forward and backward on the rack aisles, making it possible to get so many pallets perfectly & safely stored,” Beau said.

Red Gold’s new automation does not replace any Red Gold employees. In fact, the company has several job openings available right now. “Red Gold has openings for forklift drivers, material handles, mechanics and general labor,” said Elizabeth Swadener, Director of Human Resources.