16 Years In A Freezer: Why 2 of Our First Radioshuttles Are Still Running

2 April 2026

The industry standard lifespan for a satellite racking shuttle is around 7 years.

Just hold that number in your head for a second.

Now consider this:

In 2009, we installed three Radioshuttles for Heinz Watties in Christchurch.

Inside a freezer running at minus 18 to minus 20 degrees Celsius.

Moving double-stacked pallets weighing 1.5 tonnes each.

Near the upper limit of what most shuttles are even rated to handle.

Oh, and then a magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit in Sept 2010!

And those shuttles just... kept going.

For 16 years.

More than double the industry standard.

In one of the harshest operating environments you can put a piece of machinery into.

Cold enough that batteries work harder.

Heavy enough that every single movement is a serious mechanical event.

In 2025 - sixteen years later - Heinz Watties decided to upgrade them

Not because they failed. Not because they broke down beyond repair. Because they were getting old and in a business that depends on these machines running every single day.

Think about that for a moment.

The original shuttles were still operational after 16 years.

We know of a competitor installation - around the same era, similar application - where a fleet of shuttles reportedly needed full replacement within three years.

Three years versus sixteen.

That's not a rounding error. That's a completely different level of product quality

And here's the thing people don't always realise about shuttles...

This isn't like a forklift where you can grab a replacement from anywhere if one breaks down. These are bespoke machines. If your shuttle supplier's product fails, your operation stops. There’s no quick fix.

So when you're choosing a Radioshuttle system, you're not just buying a piece of equipment. You’re choosing the best quality money can buy and guaranteeing the future performance of your operation.

Heinz Watties bet on Radioshuttle in 2009.

Sixteen years later, they came back for more.

Built to last! It turns out that's not marketing. It's just what happened.

Note: In some of the below photos (taken in 2008!) you’ll see some examples of what this freezer looked like before we installed the Satellite Racking and added Radioshuttle units. The pallets was block stacked. As you can imagine, this would have been a disaster when the earthquake hit, with all those pallets stacked as high as 6 high all over the freezer room! The photos are not great because of the lighting in that environment, but it should still be easy to see what was going on.