As a leading retailer of pet food and pet-related supplies, Pet Valu offers pet owners more than 10,000 products across Canada. To meet the high demand for quality and competitively priced pet products, Pet Valu needed a new, state-of-the-art distribution center.  

Completed in Summer 2023, the new 670,000 square foot facility is setting the standard for pet product distribution capabilities in Canada with strong thermal efficiency and a clean, aesthetic look. 

Before Pet Valu came on board, building owner Orlando Corporation was tasked with designing the facility. According to Hitesh Gandhi, a senior architect on the project, Orlando Corporation selected insulated metal panels (IMPs) as the building envelope, as high insulation values and a clean look were a top priority.

Offering a full air and water barrier and a core of rigid, continuous insulation, IMPs offer strong thermal efficiency, limiting heat loss to meet even the most stringent of energy requirements and keeping building occupants comfortable during even the harshest of winters. 

In Ontario, there are strict code requirements to minimize energy usage in buildings – this usually applies to heating. IMPs provide ample insulation to inhibit heat loss, with R-values of up to 8.0 per inch. 

“The good thing about these panels is the R-values can be quite high,” Gandhi said. “The only product that really allows us to achieve proper energy requirements now are IMPs...we’re looking at carbon net-zero buildings now.” 

IMPs were very forgiving for installer Thermo Design Insulation during the construction process compared to the alternative: pre-cast concrete. According to Gandhi, pre-cast concrete is cast off-site and comes ready to install, but IMPs can be cut on-site, which allows for more adaptability. 

More than 90,000 square feet of Kingspan’s KS Shadowline panels in the color Regal White were used in the facility’s construction, as well as Kingspan’s Accent Fins in the color Charcoal.  

Kingspan’s KS Shadowline panels can be used for both interior and exterior applications. With Kingspan’s QuadCore® insulation core, these panels provide high levels of fire performance. Interlocking tongue-and-groove joints provide strong foam-to-foam contact and thermal protection, allowing them to meet performance standards in many environments, including cold-storage environments. 

Kingspan’s Accent Fins are available in six different design options and help architects hoping to make their building designs stand out from the crowd. Kingspan’s IMPs are available in a wide range of colors and profiles, and they can be oriented vertically or horizontally, allowing for ample design flexibility. This facility’s panels and Accent Fin products were both placed vertically, creating a homogenous look. 

Screened walls block the building’s loading doors from the street. From the road, passersby don’t see the trucks – just Kingspan’s IMPs and Accent Fins.  

“When we design a building, it’s more about how the public sees the building from the street, rather than how the truck drivers see the building, and how the visitors see the building,” continued Gandhi. “And that’s really a good example of why we picked this product.” 

According to a news release from Pet Valu, this completed facility represents “a key milestone in the company's nationwide $110 million supply chain transformation” and brings “unprecedented scale and automation to Canada's pet sector as the largest distribution centre and robotics automation installation dedicated to serving the pet specialty industry.”