MegaFood

Cold Chain Warehouse Management System

A warehouse management system for an Auckland cold chain operator — replacing spreadsheets and phone calls with one platform that runs their own food distribution business and their storage customers side by side.

Logistics / Enterprise Software2026

MegaFood — Cold Chain Warehouse Management System

MegaFood distributes chilled and frozen food across New Zealand, and rents cold store space to other businesses. Both sides of the operation ran on spreadsheets, whiteboards and phone calls — and they wanted opposite things. The warehouse team needed tight control over every pallet. Storage customers just wanted to see their own stock without having to ring the office. We built one system that gives each of them what they need, without the two getting in each other's way. It went live at the East Tāmaki cold store first — more than 1,400 pallet positions across four levels of racking — as the proving ground for the rest of the network.

CLIENT: MegaFood
SERVICES: Product Definition System Architecture Backend Development Frontend Development DevOps & Infrastructure
YEAR: 2026

01THE CHALLENGE

One warehouse, two businesses, and no single source of truth

MegaFood stores dry, chilled and frozen goods for its own wholesale business and for paying storage customers at the same time. Stock was tracked on spreadsheets that were out of date the moment anything moved, staff answered customer queries by walking the floor, and storage invoices were reconciled by hand at the end of every month. The racking added a further complication: goods at the back of a lane sit behind other goods, so knowing something was in the warehouse did not mean anyone could actually get to it.

Stock records lived in spreadsheets that fell out of date the moment the floor moved
Storage customers had to phone or email staff to find out what they had on hand
Goods stored behind other goods, with no reliable way to know what was reachable
Two staff could unknowingly assign different pallets to the same space
Batch and expiry dates recorded on paper, only discovered when someone went looking
Monthly storage invoices reconciled by hand against warehouse records

02OUR APPROACH

One system for the floor, the office, and the customer

We built the system around the pallet — the thing the warehouse actually moves, and the thing MegaFood actually bills for. Every arrival, move and departure is recorded once and visible everywhere: on the tablets the floor team carry, in the office, and in the customer portal. The rules that keep the warehouse honest are built into the system itself, so mistakes are prevented as they happen rather than discovered weeks later.

A live picture of the warehouse: Every pallet, its contents and its owner, accurate to the last scan rather than the last spreadsheet update. Goods sitting on the floor are tracked as carefully as goods in the racking, because real warehouses overflow.
Knows what can actually be reached: The system understands that goods get blocked in behind others. It tells the operator what needs moving first, and refuses moves that would leave a pallet stranded.
Mistakes prevented, not audited: Two people can no longer assign stock to the same space. The system turns the second attempt away rather than leaving a mess to untangle later.
Expiry visible before it becomes a problem: Batch and expiry details are captured the moment goods arrive, surfaced automatically against stock, and flagged as dates approach.
Customers serve themselves: Storage customers log in to see and manage their own stock, and only their own stock. The phone calls stop.
The warehouse in 3D: A navigable model of the racking showing what is full, empty and reserved. Click any space to see what is in it.
Billing that reconciles itself: Storage invoices flow straight into Xero, with payment status syncing back automatically.
Works in English and Chinese: Every screen, for a floor team and a customer base that work in both.
One site first, the rest to follow: Rather than betting the whole operation on a single switchover, MegaFood went live at one cold store and proved it there. Multiple sites, and staff permissions scoped per site, were built in from the start, so the next warehouse joins this system rather than needing its own.