Over the past few years, renderers have seen prices for their products plummet, government regulations hinder the use of certain proteins, and export markets fluctuate. While the industry searches for new markets to help boost product use and value, one renderer has turned to diversification to help continue their success into the future.
On five acres situated right next door to Baker Commodities’ Los Angeles, CA, rendering plant is a brand new state-of-the-art cold storage facility. What was once the site of an old 1920s packinghouse gathering dust since it was last used in 1989 is now a quickly thriving business that is bringing in some much desired extra revenue.
“We are sticking to our nature of being true recyclers,” stated Ray Kelly, executive vice president at Baker Commodities. The old building was torn down and the cattle pens and paving were removed, pulverized, and used in the soil regrading, all in preparation for construction of the new modern cold storage facility.
Baker Commodities began investigating building the new facility in the mid-1990s, but quickly had to put the project on hold after a devastating fire in their Massachusetts plant required a complete rebuild. But it wasn’t long after that the renderer returned to the project, especially after determining that the growing Los Angeles metropolitan area was in desperate need of more modern cold storage facilities. It took one year to build the 127,000 square foot building and develop the surrounding property to allow easy access and turnaround for the large trucks.
“It was a fun project to watch being built,” commented Kelly. One area of interest was the construction of the floor, which was actually built in layers.
The foundation itself is a slab of concrete seven-inches thick. Below that is eight-inches of dense Styrofoam insulation, followed by four to five inches of soil. Under the layer of soil are heating coils that use waste heat generated from the cold storage condensers that keep the soil at an ideal warm temperature. Kelly pointed out that the soil must be kept from freezing, which in turn will cause the concrete floor nearly two feet above to buckle. He explained that when one cold storage facility in the area suffered a damaged floor, they discovered the earth was frozen 27 feet down. The building’s ceiling is also heavily insulated.
Although Baker Commodities owns the building and land, Inland Cold Storage-Vernon runs the cold storage operation, including marketing potential tenants. The facility opened its doors in late January and within one month, the occupancy rate was at 30 percent.
The cold storage facility is separate from the rendering facilities and boasts a capacity of 3.5 million cubic feet with 15,500 pallet positions. It is divided into four separate rooms, three of which are dedicated freezers and one that is designed as a fresh food cooler, but can be adjusted for freezer use. Five blast freezers are capable of holding two truckloads in each freezer.
Does Baker Commodities have plans for any other new projects outside of rendering? Kelly said not at this time, but quickly added that the cold storage facility was designed so there is room for expansion.
Newsline - April 2002 Render