Ever wonder what type of products are held in large cold storage facilities like Washington Cold Storage? This is not an unusual question, as most consumers don’t think in any great detail about how their cold products travel from the farm or production facility to market.
To meet the growing demand for fresh and readily available food and other commodities, a growing number of cold storage facilities across the country and worldwide exist as a key midpoint in the supply chain. From typical fresh meat and produce to medicine, cold storage warehouses like Washington Cold Storage provide climate-controlled refrigeration or frozen storage and logistics to keep products fresh.
There are more than 2 billion pounds of frozen vegetables and an additional 1.2 billion pounds of frozen potatoes stored in facilities across the United States, according to the most recent report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.
There are 1.1 billion pounds of frozen fruit and 900 million pounds of frozen juice concentrate, according to the report, and a total of 1.3 billion pounds of frozen poultry, 1.1 billion pounds of frozen red meat and 1.3 billion pounds of cheese in cold storage. Facilities also store other dairy products, processed foods, pharmaceuticals and baked goods. Cold storage can be very important for products like vaccines or insulin for diabetic patients, both of which must be kept refrigerated.
Cold Storage facilities can create perfect zones of ideal temperatures to keep each product fresh while waiting to be shipped out to a final market destination. The actual product can vary wildly from film to prepared processed foods like french fries and onion rings. Many kinds of produce and dry goods do not require freezer or refrigeration, but Washington Cold Storage does have space for these products as well, particularly if logistically it makes sense to move these products in tandem.
Photo credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture
