What's New

Lighting Case Study by Digital Lumens

November 2014

SnoTemp Gains Better, Higher Quality Lighting with 50% Fewer Fixtures and Massive Energy Savings. Read the full case study here.

 

Cold Standard

October 15th 2013

Register Guard article about the SnoTemp Eugene groundbreaking on a 70,000 sq ft deep freezer. Read the article here.

 

Blueberries Help Store Wind Energy

July 2013

Consumer's Electric Ruralite Magazine Article Read the article here.

 

Cold Gets Hot

August 28th, 2011

Register Guard article about SnoTemp Cold Storage and the local ice cream industry. Read the article here.

The article also features:

 

Food Logistics Announces Its 2010 Top 85 3PLs

August 20th, 2010 09:52 AM EDT

Melville, NY : Food Logistics, the only publication exclusively dedicated to covering the movement of product through the food supply chain, this week announced the fifth-annual listing of the Top 85 3PLs in its July/August 2010 issue.

In 2006, Food Logistics announced its first “50” list of third-party logistics providers that were helping food companies optimize their warehousing and transportation operations. Last year, the magazine expanded the list to 70 companies. This year, the magazine added 15 new 3PLs to the list, for a total of 85 companies. These 3PLs offer a broad scope of services and capabilities that enable food companies to reduce costs, increase flexibility and improve service levels.

“Food distribution is a very complex business and 3PLs play a crucial role in the supply chain,” explains Katherine Doherty, editor-in-chief of Food Logistics magazine.

“While most 3PLs have felt the effects of the economic downturn, the Top 85 continue to respond to their customers’ needs and rise to the logistical challenges that today’s food organizations face.

“Our annual list has grown to 85 companies, reflecting the changing and diverse needs of our readers,” says Doherty. “We’ve expanded this list to help our readers find and evaluate 3PL partners that can help them achieve their goals.”

After receiving nomination forms from end users and solution providers, the editorial staff culled through the submissions to compile this year’s Top 85 3PLs listing. Final recipients are featured in the cover story of the July/August issue of Food Logistics. Visit the link below to view a complete list of the final recipients.

2010 Top 85 3PLs

 

Albany Location Opens New Energy Efficient Facility

 

For Immediate Release

May 13, 2010

Contact: Jason Lafferty

541.343.1694

 

new facility image

Albany, Oregon - SnoTemp Cold Storage announces the opening of a 100,000 square foot frozen storage warehouse at its Albany, Oregon location. The state-of-the-art facility was designed and built according to the highest energy efficiency standards, reducing energy consumption by 50 percent - the equivalent energy use of 150 homes each year. The addition brings total capacity of SnoTemp's Albany location to 375,000 square feet with temperature options ranging from +60 F to -18 F.

"This facility was built on the hard work and success of our customer base. We are providing these companies with a cold chain infrastructure that will allow them to continue to be competitive in the marketplace," explains General Manager Jason Lafferty. To that end, the Albany location has 20 adjacent acres available for siting a food processor or other allied industry.

"The majority of our environmental impact comes from our energy use. We made large investments in our energy efficiency efforts, in order to limit our environmental impact," states Jason Lafferty. Efficiency measures include: 50 percent additional insulation for freezer walls and roof, state-of-the-art refrigeration control system, high efficiency flourescent lighting controlled by occupancy sensors, variable frequency
drives on motors, and refrigeration system efficiencies achieved through oversizing components.

"Many companies will find this facility to be an attractive option. In addition to meeting the needs of our current customers, we believe this facility will be an appealing strategic alternative for companies seeking cold storage and distribution services in the Northwest," notes Vice President of Sales, Paul Haugen.

Located in the agricultural heart of the Willamette Valley, SnoTemp Cold Storage serves a large spectrum of frozen food processors and retailers, including dairy, poultry, beef, fruits and vegetables and seafood. The 3815 Marion St. location provides quick access to Interstate 5, Highway 99 and offers a 10 car rail siding with reciprocal switching options (daily switching of UP and BNSF railcars).

About SnoTemp Cold Storage

SnoTemp has been family owned and professionally operated for over 50 years. In early 2010 Eugene Freezing & Storage brought its Eugene Facility and Albany Facility under the same name - SnoTemp Cold Storage. Together, the Company offers 550,000 square feet of temperature controlled warehousing (+60 - -18 F) at its two convenient locations. Both locations offer adjacent industrial land well suited for a co-locating a food processing plant or other allied industry.

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Hands-On Customer Service

July 2009

Eugene Freezing & Storage was featured in Exec-Digital Magazine. Follow the link below to read the article.

Hands-On Customer Service

 

Family Keeps Warm Spot for Freezing

By Joe Mosley The Register-Guard
Published: Sunday, October 23, 2005

With a twist, Pete Lafferty has arrived at the same conclusion as the beloved Jimmy Stewart character George Bailey: It really is a wonderful life.

Lafferty wasn't quite enthusiastic at first about following his father, Paul, into the family business. The elder Lafferty founded Eugene Freezing and Storage in 1957, and had designs on bringing his son into the fold a dozen or so years later.

"Right out of college, I had other ideas," Pete Lafferty says. "But Dad pulled a pretty smooth one. He said, 'How about staying around and helping us for the busy season?' Then after the summer was over, he'd say, 'Why don't you go to Europe and follow your brother through the ski season?' "

His brother, Mike, was a member of the U.S. Ski Team, a downhill specialist who eventually participated in the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan.
Pete accompanied his brother to Europe and then returned just in time for Eugene Freezing's next busy season, putting up frozen goods for the southern Willamette Valley's fruit and vegetable processors. He was again pressed into service by his father.

"That happened a few years, and then I became a permanent fixture around here," Pete says. Not that Eugene Freezing and Storage ever represented the kind of professional dead-end portrayed by Bailey's Savings and Loan in the film "It's a Wonderful Life."

It was a thriving business when Pete Lafferty was drawn into it nearly 40 years ago - his brother Mike followed him a few years later - and it has grown into a critical storage and distribution link for many of Oregon's food production and processing industries.

But, like George Bailey, Pete and brother Mike have spent their careers chasing a form of satisfaction with a little less flash than the world-beating dreams of youth. And they haven't regretted it for a minute.

"I guess when you're younger, you always think about doing something different," Mike Lafferty says. "By the time I got around to where I was going to work full-time, this looked like a good opportunity."

Originally built as a 17,000-square-foot frozen food warehouse, Eugene Freezing was expanded six times over about 30 years and now covers 204,296 square feet.
That's enough to provide 4.1 million cubic feet of storage space, with pallets stacked as high as 25 feet.

Outside walls of the freezer warehouses have 11 inches of insulation, and special foil-type flashing is glued to all edges and corners to prevent both air leaks and frost buildup. Loading docks on all the newer warehouses - 16 truck bays in all - allow forklift loading from freezers, and quick turn- arounds for frozen-food freight haulers.

"We kind of built it big enough to get the last kernel of corn in the door," Pete Lafferty says. Then there's Eugene Freezing's sister company, SnowTemp Cold Storage in Albany, which the Laffertys built in 1974. After several expansions, SnowTemp now offers another 6.9 million cubic feet of storage space.

A small percentage of the space at each facility is set aside for nonfrozen cold storage products, at 40 degrees. The remainder is for frozen food - from crab to cranberries - at temperatures ranging downward to minus-18 degrees.

"It's been a business that has had pretty steady growth," says Pete Lafferty, who serves as the company's president.

His brother is vice president and heads the Albany operation. Pete's 30-year-old son, Jason, joined the company in 2001 and now serves as general manager at the Eugene facility.

Eugene Freezing originally was built primarily as a production facility, storing products for the old Eugene Fruit Growers Association and then AgriPac. But its mission has changed over time.

"Frozen cherries used to be 90 percent of the business, and now we don't do a one," Pete says. "Now it's getting more into ice cream."

"We'll store a couple million pounds of ice cream at any one time," Jason Lafferty says. Which, relatively speaking, is small potatoes. The company stores 10 million pounds of corn annually, and its largest-volume product is cranberries, at about 20 million pounds per year.

Ocean Spray, for instance, keeps all of its harvested crop of Oregon cranberries - grown near Bandon - at Eugene Freezing.

The food processor draws on the frozen berries throughout the year, as needed.
Other products you might find at Eugene Freezing - in quantities that make Costco look mom- and-pop - include store-brand juices from Cliffstar Corp., Tombstone Pizza, soy-based ice cream alternatives from Eugene's Turtle Mountain Inc., poultry from Creswell's Foster Farms, and tuna and crab from Dave's Gourmet Albacore and Pacific Seafood, respectively.

The company has gradually shifted from serving almost exclusively as a production facility, storing bulk products for food-processing companies, to increasingly being a distribution point for ready-for-market products.

As the focus has changed, so have the corporate clients - and prospects for future business relationships.

Jason Lafferty, for instance, has his sights set on adding clients from the growing list of natural food processors in the area.

"There's some movement to bring processors from California up here," he says. "And Eugene's not a bad place to be."

Jason says that with some authority, having been elsewhere for several years before his return to the family business.

He went to college in Ohio and then spent four years in Vail, Colo., where he coached ski racing and served as an event manager for the resort.

"I was going to school and I wasn't coming back here, but this has been fantastic," he says. "I came back and gave it a shot, and I've really enjoyed it."

Now, Jason's younger brother, Willie, is working at the company as summer help, as is Mike Lafferty's son, Sam. It's too early to tell if they'll wind up in the family business, but they're getting their first taste. "I'll probably do the same thing Jason did," says Willie, who is 18. "I'll go somewhere else for a while and do something. Then we'll see."

EUGENE FREEZING & STORAGE
Founded: In 1957 by Paul Lafferty
Address: 310 S. Seneca Road
Owners: Lafferty Family
Number of employees: 15
Family employees involved in the business: Pete Lafferty, president: Mike Lafferty, vice president; Jason Lafferty, general manager; Willie and Sam Lafferty, summer help