Working Group Services
Prepare your stores for power outages
We assess your stores and develop outage procedures with you. We plan the connection, placement and required power. With our partners, we organise where generators are based, who delivers them and how fuel is replenished.
Our focus is protecting your goods and maintaining the chilled and frozen cold chain. The agreed operating modes build on this.
Why we work as a group
Food and quality management, electrical engineering, criminology and emergency-power logistics require different specialists. The working group brings this expertise together and works with your responsible teams and regional partners. The tasks extend beyond what a single company can provide.
We develop your playbook
We are food-sector and quality-management consultants with an IFS background in grocery retail and the food industry. We develop outage procedures with your responsible teams.
We align the playbook with your existing QM procedures, including HACCP, cold-chain requirements and food-safety rules.
Prepare scenarios for each location
- 01
Controlled closure
The store remains closed. Cooling continues to protect the goods.
- 02
Limited trading
We agree with you what is needed for restricted trading and the conditions under which it can take place.
- 03
Full operation
We prepare for full operation and establish the requirements for power, staff, IT, payment systems and safety.
As with a product recall, procedures are agreed in advance. We develop scenarios for each location and include them in existing HACCP and QM procedures.
- An excavator damages a power cable.
- A planned shutdown is announced.
- A local power outage affects one or several stores.
- An attack affects electricity infrastructure.
- The grid operator disconnects the store’s power supply with or without prior notice.
For each scenario, the playbook defines who decides, who acts and when goods must be relocated.
We plan the connection and generator placement
We plan the connection point, switching, protection equipment and required power. Placement, cable routes and delivery access are also established.
PowerLock offers a manufacturer-independent connection for mobile generators or batteries. A partner from our network or your in-house technical team can carry out the installation. Installation, testing and acceptance must be carried out by an appropriately qualified electrician. Trained, authorised staff can subsequently connect preconfigured equipment. Statutory requirements apply.
Agree which stores to prepare
We assess connections, placement, logistics, food supply and security at your stores. We use our internal risk tool for this. We discuss the findings with you and agree which stores should be prepared and in what order.
Risk AnalysisWe help coordinate the logistics
We assess which supermarkets, distribution centres and locations in our wider network could serve as equipment bases. We consider distance to the stores, available space and requirements for storing equipment and fuel.
We coordinate delivery, fuel and support on site with regional partners. Your central facility management is involved from the start. We arrange driver standby and generator storage through our partners when you want us to handle them.
Supermarket chains’ central distribution centres are particularly suitable for storing the generators.
Include checkouts, communications and food replenishment
Continued trading also depends on staff, checkout systems, payment services, communications and food replenishment. We establish these requirements with the responsible teams and record them in the playbook.
Protect staff and goods
Our criminologists develop plans to maximise the safety of staff and goods. Crises can lead to looting and unrest. We include these risks in the risk assessment and plan appropriate measures as part of the overall approach.
Providing phone-charging facilities is a simple way to involve the neighbourhood.
What we do not cover
Our concept protects goods and maintains the chilled and frozen cold chain during local outages. This prevents an outage from turning into major stock losses and days of business interruption.
Blackouts, brownouts and widespread power outages
These events fall outside the scenarios we cover. This includes an outage affecting an entire federal state. Our measures can also help in those situations.
Our scope and government preparedness
Government preparedness gets talked to death while you wait for a plan. In the meantime, we focus on protecting your goods and preventing financial losses during local outages.
Uninsurable events
Events that an insurer would not insure also fall outside our concept. Prepared measures may work in disaster scenarios too. Such events are not the focus of our concept.
A dedicated generator for every store
We prepare selected stores and plan shared mobile equipment.
Exact outage predictions or electricity-grid simulations
Our internal risk tool provides location assessments and evidence to support store selection.
Mobile generators for individual stores inside shopping malls
These locations need a different arrangement. We help organise it.
Agree responsibilities before power fails
Store teams, quality management, facility management, electrical professionals and regional partners have different tasks. Together, we agree responsibilities and how they will work together during an outage.
Agree which stores to prepare
Our focus is protecting your goods and maintaining the chilled and frozen cold chain. The agreed operating modes build on this.
Join the working group
If your expertise or services can contribute to the working group, join us. We need specialists and partners for the different tasks before and during an outage.