Inside the The Feeds Advanced AI-Powered Warehouse

Imagine a warehouse that runs almost entirely on AI-powered robots—where orders are picked, packed, and shipped around the clock with barely any human labor. That’s exactly what’s happening at The Feed, a leading sports nutrition retailer, and it’s changing the game for e-commerce fulfillment.

At the heart of this operation are 48 Brightpick Autopicker robots. These aren’t just machines—they’re the new workhorses of the warehouse, managing everything from restocking inventory to picking orders and prepping them for delivery. Thanks to this cutting-edge system, the warehouse runs 24/7, moves up to 50,000 items a day, and only needs a small team of people to keep it going.

Let’s take a look behind the scenes and see what makes this operation so remarkable.

Meet the Autopickers: Tireless, Precise, and Smart

In traditional warehouses, picking items for customer orders can be one of the toughest jobs—people can end up walking the equivalent of two marathons a week. But here, things are different. Brightpick robots do the walking, scanning, and picking—all on their own.

Here’s how it works:

• Each robot starts by grabbing an empty tote (basically a box to collect items).
• It moves through storage aisles, selects the needed items using a smart 3D scanner, and drops them into the tote.
• The robot repeats this until the full order is ready to go.

The real magic happens through AI. These robots don’t just follow instructions—they understand what to do. The system identifies the best way to grab each item, even if it’s never seen that product before. And if a robot makes a mistake? It learns from it and gets better with each pick.

Humans Still Play a Role—But a Smarter One

There are some items that robots can’t handle—maybe they’re too heavy, oddly shaped, or just tricky to grab. For those cases, humans step in at “goods-to-person” stations.

Here, robots bring items to workers, and the workers do the picking manually with help from a user-friendly interface. Each station can handle up to four robots at once, meaning the worker is always busy and nothing sits idle.

As one employee said:

“At our old warehouse, we had to walk around finding everything ourselves. Now, the robots bring it right to us—we just pack and move on. It’s so much easier.”

High-Demand Items? That’s Where Pallet Picking Comes In

For fast-moving items or promotional bundles, it’s faster to pick directly from pallets rather than store them in the system. In these cases:

• Items are kept in their original boxes or on pallets.
• A robot pulls up to request an item via tablet.
• A human grabs the item and places it into the robot’s tote.

This approach speeds up the process for bestsellers and makes it super simple to restock. It’s also great for custom bundles and kitting.

Buffering Orders While You Sleep

Once an order is picked, the robot either delivers it straight to the packing station or temporarily stores it in a buffer area until it’s needed.

Why does this matter?

1. Robots can keep working overnight while everyone else is off the clock.
2. It helps manage volume spikes during the day, smoothing out the workflow.

This means more orders get out the door—without hiring more people or buying more robots.

The Packout Area: Flexible, Fast, and Fully Automated

When it’s time to ship, everything moves to the packout area. It’s designed to be super flexible, so it’s easy to reconfigure during peak seasons.

One of the coolest features? A fully automated packaging machine that takes the picked items and boxes them up—no hands required.

“We went from needing 50 to 100 people to becoming fully automated. We didn’t have to let anyone go because the business was growing. But we basically stopped needing to hire more.”

Now, employees focus on quality control, prepping final orders, and working alongside the robots. And they’re happy about it.

Restocking Made Easy: The Replenishment Process

Inventory gets replenished at the decanting station. Here’s how:

• Humans unload items from large boxes and put them into storage totes.
• Robots pick up the totes and move them back into the system.

The AI uses a method called “dynamic slotting” to place items in smart locations. Fast-moving products go near the front. Items for human pickers go near their stations. The system can hold up to 11,000 totes on 10-foot shelves—and it’s easy to expand.

The shelving is simple, too—no expensive hardware, conveyors, or complex guides. Robots use LiDAR and onboard AI to move around with incredible precision, even passing within an inch of each other at up to five miles an hour.

And yes, they’ll stop if they see you coming. No need for safety fences or shutdowns.

Brightpick Intuition: The Brain Behind the Bots

None of this works without Brightpick’s Intuition software. It’s the control center that tells every robot what to do, when to do it, and how to get there without bumping into others.

It:

• Optimizes travel paths for speed and efficiency.
• Tracks every item, tote, and robot in real-time.
• Syncs with the warehouse’s inventory system for full visibility.

Think of it like a conductor making sure the whole orchestra plays in harmony.

Final Thoughts: A Glimpse Into the Future

This warehouse isn’t just a cool tech showcase—it’s proof that the future of fulfillment is here. AI and robotics are working side by side with people to get more done, faster and smarter.

It’s simple, scalable, and built to adapt. Whether you’re shipping 50,000 orders a day or gearing up for peak season, this system makes it possible—without burning out your team or breaking the bank.

Want to see it in action? Check out the full video case study and explore how Brightpick is reshaping the future of e-commerce fulfillment.

And if you found this as fascinating as we did, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and stay curious.