“The higher the wages,
the more our robots pay off”

What began four years ago “in the garage” of West Flemish shelving manufacturer stow has now grown into a rapidly expanding robotics specialist for warehouse automation, boasting a turnover of 250 million euros and 450 employees. It’s a story of how a combination of traditional steel and high-tech robotics can conquer the logistics world.

A brisk North Sea wind whistles around the massive cold storage warehouse on the Route des Caraïbes in the port of Dunkirk, France. But even that pales in comparison to the -24 degrees Celsius that hits us as we step inside the towering “high-rise box” of frozen fries producer Clarebout. This leading West Flemish food company houses 80,000 pallets of frozen fries and other potato products here, ready to be shipped to supermarkets worldwide. Every day, 1,500 pallets are retrieved from the ten-level shelving units by an atlas shuttle, a loading platform that moves three-dimensionally between the shelving towers on a track.

The shuttles are fully automated, directed by a central computer that constantly recalculates the warehouse’s logistics flow faster and more efficiently than any human could. Normally, no humans are present in the warehouse—only for visitors and maintenance technicians is the area lit.

The atlas is part of a larger family of four robots from Movu, a young robotics specialist based in Lokeren. These include the ifollow, escala, and eligo, which complement the atlas in their product lineup. The atlas passes pallets to the ifollow, a fully autonomous pallet transport vehicle that delivers the load to truck loading docks. What the atlas does for pallets, the escala does for “bins,” the plastic containers typically used in e-commerce warehouses for order picking. The escala retrieves bins from the shelves and transports them down a sloped track to the eligo, an order-picking robot. Together, these four robots can handle about 70% of all logistics tasks required in warehouses and distribution centers.

“The robots are the result of years of intense research, development, business growth, and acquisitions,” says Jos De Vuyst, proudly guiding us through Movu’s client warehouse. De Vuyst has been CEO for nearly 35 years at stow, the shelving manufacturer and parent company from which Movu was spun off four years ago. In that time, the tech spin-out—originally called stow Robotics—has skyrocketed from zero to a projected turnover of 250 million euros by 2025. “We’ve been developing the atlas since 2012, even though it was a very early version back then that couldn’t change direction. It marked the first cautious steps into robotics for the metalworking company that stow was at the time.”

Cutting, bending, punching, and welding steel profiles into pallet racks and shelving systems has been the core business of the West Flemish company based in Spiere-Helkijn since the 1970s. Today, its clients include some of the biggest names in retail, industry, and logistics, such as IKEA, Zalando, Amazon, DVS, Dachser, Kuehne+Nagel, and more. With nearly 1,900 employees and ten production facilities, it’s one of the world’s three largest shelving manufacturers—and, with a turnover of 820 million euros, the largest in Europe.

Movu, initially known as stow Robotics, has developed rapidly within the slipstream of this industry giant since 2022. “It all happened very quickly,” says De Vuyst. “Within a year, we hit 60 million euros in turnover. Judging by our order book, we’ll cross the 250-million-euro mark this year.”

When asked about the advantages of his robots, the usually reserved De Vuyst becomes almost poetic: “Our atlas shuttles alone save 20 to 40% of space in a warehouse compared to traditional pallet cranes. This means warehouses can be built lower, saving significant energy costs, especially in cold storage facilities. While cranes need to be purchased at full capacity upfront, our robot system can be scaled modularly. Existing buildings can also be retrofitted with our shelves and technology. Autonomous mobile robots, like our ifollow, will eventually replace traditional forklifts and conveyor belts. No more drivers needed for three shifts, and significantly fewer accidents causing material and human damage.”

E-commerce

We drive with De Vuyst and stow’s CFO, Tom Gysens, to the distribution center of a Movu client in Cambrai, 140 kilometers from Dunkirk. From here, the northern French logistics player Houtch distributes a wide range of products for industrial clients and consumer brands. Inside a massive so-called ‘picking tower’—a fenced shelving unit 200 meters long, 50 meters wide, and 15 meters high, where Movu supplies even larger versions for e-commerce warehouses like Zalando and Amazon—about ten escala carts move back and forth carrying ‘bins,’ or plastic containers, each holding a single product. Each bin is delivered to a picking station where customer orders are assembled into one package. Here, human order pickers still do the job, but at other clients, they have been replaced by Movu’s eligo robots. Even without the robot upgrade, Houtch can handle the same number of orders with escala automation using half the workforce.

According to De Vuyst, this is the biggest advantage of robotics: saving on labor costs. “Not only large logistics players but also retailers and e-commerce companies are looking to automate boring, repetitive night-shift jobs. Our robots can work 24/7 without issues like lack of daylight or the noise from rattling conveyor belts. I once visited a Zalando warehouse in Rotterdam, where about 2,000 people work during the Valentine’s Day rush, earning minimum wage. I don’t think many people do that willingly. Robots make fewer mistakes and don’t call in sick, which can’t always be said for human workers. The tight labor market and rising wages are driving this trend. The higher the labor costs, the more our robots pay off. The initial investment is, of course, higher, but at current average European wages, you can recoup that investment within two to three years.”

In the United States, Movu feels the pressure of a tight labor market even more strongly. “Factories and warehouses in the U.S. are already far less automated than in Europe,” says Gysens. “Since the COVID-19 crisis, wages in the U.S. have also risen significantly. And if Trump follows through with his plans to deport millions of undocumented workers, the demand for automation and robotics will grow quickly.”

A quarter more expensive

This is why Movu now sells 35 percent of its robotics systems in the U.S., compared to 65 percent in Europe. “We expect that ratio to flip soon. Of the 35 Movu projects currently under development, ten are in the U.S., and our sales team is working hard on three mega-projects for major American logistics companies. If we land those, our order intake this year could reach 350 to 450 million euros.”

And even that is just a fraction of the €35 billion that the global market for warehouse automation is worth, according to a study by Boston Consulting Group. But there’s still growth potential for rack manufacturer stow as well. “The racking market is roughly worth €8 billion, split fifty-fifty between the US and Europe. In Europe, we’re the market leader, and globally, we’re number two. The latter is because, in the US, we’re still behind the Spanish company Mecalux, as they already have a factory in the US. Not for much longer,” laughs De Vuyst. “We’re building a factory for stow, which will allow us to directly serve large American customers. It’s set to be operational by next April. At the same time, we’re setting up an office for Movu. The plans for the factory are ready—we’re deciding tomorrow which of two buildings to purchase—and we’ve already ordered €50 million worth of machinery. We’re determined to make North America our second home market. Within a few years, we aim to generate several hundred million euros in revenue there.”

De Vuyst and Gysens have been toying with this idea for several years, but due to the America First policy and the high import tariffs introduced under Trump—25% on steel from stow and (for now) 10% on Movu’s technology—it has become more urgent than ever. “Through renegotiations, we’re trying to pass these tariffs onto our customers, but it’s not going very well. For new projects, of course, we can. Naturally, this makes our racks 25% more expensive, but the same applies to our American competitors: the price of American steel has risen by 25% since Trump took office. So the playing field remains level. The big losers are American logistics companies and, ultimately, the American consumer, who ends up shouldering the extra costs. In the long term, stow will be saved by its American factory, and Movu has unique technology that American companies don’t offer. What’s currently impacting us the most is the enormous chaos affecting economic growth in certain regions, which is slowing investment demand.”

Patented

Movu’s ambitious growth plans in the US somewhat contrast with the declining revenue of parent company stow in 2024. Revenue fell 10% to €820 million, primarily due to the drop in steel prices. According to Gysens, this also had an additional impact on sales volumes, as customers delayed orders in the hope that steel prices would drop further.

Still, stow managed to maintain an EBITDA margin of 11%, thanks in part to Movu contributing to EBITDA for the first time, whereas in previous years, it weighed heavily on the group’s profitability. Over the past four years, the group has invested €250 million in the spin-off. Movu, now operating fully independently and soon to be led by its own CEO, promises to be the growth engine for the entire group. Of the €170 million in revenue the spin-off generated last year, half came from its technology—robots and software—and the other half from its accompanying racks. “Movu grew in the slipstream of stow’s enormous customer base,” says De Vuyst. “But it also works the other way around: the racks are specifically designed for Movu’s robots and form one integrated, patented system. That synergy also allows stow to grow thanks to Movu.”

The parent-subsidiary relationship is a textbook example of how innovation and technology can drive progress even in a highly traditional sector like metalworking. “This year, we expect revenue growth again. Within two to three years, we aim to achieve consolidated revenue of €1.5 billion.”

This rapid growth, according to De Vuyst, also means that the main shareholder, Blackstone—a typically American private equity firm with an average investment horizon of five to seven years—is in no rush to exit. “As long as we can continue showing this kind of rapid growth with Movu, I think our main shareholder will be very pleased.”

Effort

‘I have a hard time with business leaders who are constantly complaining.’

Unlike many of his fellow entrepreneurs, De Vuyst is not as negative about the business climate in Belgium. ‘I don’t understand the aversion some business leaders have towards Belgium, those eternal complainers. We can compare ourselves to ten other countries in Europe and the US. Productivity is higher in Belgium. In general, a Belgian works 30 percent more efficiently and is much more loyal to their employer than an American. That largely offsets our extensive social systems. Belgians are highly educated, they have a strong work ethic, and they are simply still here. In the US, you pay an arm and a leg for engineers. We usually look within the broader region around our two locations in Chicago and the city yet to be determined for our new factory. But the further west you go, towards Silicon Valley, where you’ll find companies like Google and Nvidia, the situation goes off the rails. You have to pay enormous salaries for a software engineer.’

Belgium also has the advantage of economic unemployment. If we don’t have enough work in our factories in the Czech Republic, Portugal, or Turkey, we still have to pay those workers. I also don’t see automatic wage indexation in our country as a problem. In our neighboring countries, wages also rise – albeit with some delay – due to the forces of supply and demand in the labor market. Take Germany, for example. There, we also had to increase wages by 6 percent. The same in France: inflation +1.95 percent, our wages +1.95 percent. Germany is also worse in terms of productivity: in cost per ton of stretch film, automation makes Belgium significantly cheaper than a German factory.’

‘So I have a hard time with business leaders who are constantly complaining. You’re paid to find solutions, aren’t you? And then they try to pressure the relevant minister through various employer organizations to solve the problem for them.’