Produce buildings built to support field crop operations.

Produce buildings built to support field crop operations.

Growers of wholesale fruit and vegetable have 2 types of operations,one is having a fruit to harvest orchard or they plant field crops which are always vegitables. Either and orchard or a growing operation will eventually have their fruits and vegetables harvested. Then there is an immediate need to take temperature out of the fruit or vegetable that is just then harvested. Typically when harvesting occurs the produce is somewhere between 60° to 90°F and quickly has to be taken to cooler warehouse temperatures which are usually somewhere between 34 and 36°. Most growing operations have to have their own cooler warehouse building nearby. Typically these are not large refrigerated buildings; perhaps from 4,000 ft.² up to 10,000 ft.², but that is a lot of fruit and vegetables.

The specialized cooler warehouse buildings typically had more horsepower in the refrigeration mechanical systems within the regular cooler warehouse building would normally have. The fruit vegetables have to quickly be chilled, or they will not be desirable for resale, and in some cases may become spoiled and not able to be sold at all. Also these refrigerated buildings have the ability to circulate a lot of air throughout the refrigerated floor space areas to facilitate the rapid cooling of the field or orchard produce.

A typical example of a produce building is located at 1075 McDonough in Collinsville, Illinois 62235. Collinsville is located approximately in the center of the standard Metropolitan St. Louis area in 15 miles from St. Louis's Produce Row This 10,800 ft.² cooler warehouse building was originally built in the 1970s to support the field crop operation of horseradish. Horseradish is a field crop, also known as a root crop. Horseradish has high sugar content and requires a lower storage temperature than most fruit or vegetables. The cooler warehouse building at 1075 McDonough is capable of operating at approximately 28°. Sugar has a lower freezing point than 32°. Whenever a refrigerated warehouse building, like this metropolitan St. Louis, Missouri area that has temperature capabilities of storage in the upper 20s, then they are called a Low Temp Cooler Warehouse Buildings. Because of the upper 20s cooler storage temperatures, there is a need for some type of insulation in the floors in the cooler warehouse area. This Collinsville, Illinois warehouse facility has flooring insulation. Flooring installation basically is very compressed polystyrene are urethane panel that is placed just before the final concrete pour of the warehouse floor.

Hawk Distribution Services, LLC www.hawkds.com has 28 years of experience as refrigerated building real estate brokers. Please contact Jim Cronin at 314-994-0577 or e-mail J.Cronin@hawkds.com to discuss your company's refrigerated building real estate needs.





 

When do refrigerated food processing companies need to lease freezer warehouse space?

A refrigerated food manufacturing or refrigerated food processing plant primarily is involved in making refrigerated or frozen foods that require both non refrigerated and refrigerated ingredients. Most of the products that are made in refrigerated food processing plants typically are directly shipped within a matter of days from their refrigerated building. However, from time to time there is not enough freezer warehouse space or cooler warehouse space in their refrigerated facility to hold all their refrigerated ingredients or the refrigerated or frozen foods. Then these companies will need to lease cooler warehouse space or to lease freezer warehouse space somewhere near their food manufacturing plant.

Whenever refrigeration is required for ingredients or finished products there will be only a limited number of refrigerated buildings in the area that are available for lease. The refrigerated food processing plant will have to also consider the distance from their facility. The further away from the facility the more expensive it will be to transport the product back and forth from the manufacturing facility. The ideal situation would be to lease a freezer warehouse room, within a larger existing freezer warehouse building. This way the owner of the building would already be operating the existing facility which would include operating and maintaining the building’s refrigeration system.

An example would be the freezer warehouse space available for lease at 7235 Vicksburg Pike in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. The 8,000 square-foot refrigerated warehouse space is one room with one single door for entry and exit. The freezer room is completely pallet racked with 1,380 pallet slot positions and capable of -15° storage temperatures. Therefore a food company would need to do is to rent the room and uses the Ft. Wayne, Indiana freezer warehouse space whenever needed.

Hawk Distribution Services, LLC www.hawkds.com has 28 years of experience as refrigerated building real estate brokers. Please contact Jim Cronin at 314-994-0577 or e-mail J.Cronin@hawkds.com to discuss your company's refrigerated building real estate needs.