WASHINGTON: Nordic Logistics and Warehousing, a member of AGRO Merchants Group, has announced plans to develop a new cold storage and repack facility in Savannah, its second major expansion since the company came into the Savannah market less than four years ago.
The new facility, which will be built adjacent to the current Nordic site in West Chatham, will initially add 175,000 square feet to Nordic’s current 400,000 square feet, with additional land available for future expansion.
Nordic opened its first state-of-the-art storage and blast facility in April 2013. The site features more than 200,000 square feet of convertible temperature-controlled storage space and is capable of blasting — or flash freezing — more than 10 million pounds of product, ranging from fresh poultry to produce, per week. Blasting brings the temperature of foods down rapidly, freezing them in a matter of seconds, which helps preserve their nutritional properties.
The $30 million facility initially employed 150 workers. In April, the company, which had been acquired by AGRO Merchants Group in October of 2015, completed a 200,000 square-foot expansion of their existing Savannah facility, doubling the facility’s footprint and hiring another 150 people.
Construction of this latest facility will begin in the first quarter of 2017 with operations to begin in the fourth quarter. It will feature seven multi-temperature rooms with 7,000 total pallet positions, 25,000 square-feet for repacking and bagging operations, and multi-use space set aside to support onsite fumigation and ripening.
With 25 doors and 85-foot docks, the facility will support efficient product unloading, receiving, inspection, and grading. “On behalf of the GPA, I would like to personally thank Nordic’s entire team for growing their business here in Savannah,” said Griff Lynch, GPA’s executive director.
“Nordic is a leading player in the movement of frozen and chilled cargoes around the world. This investment is another example of Georgia’s importance as an international producer and exporter of refrigerated commodities.” GPA’s refrigerated container-handling infrastructure includes nearly 2,500 plugged rack slots, more than 700 wheeled plugged slots, two refrigerated container wash areas with a total of 21 lanes and more than 1 million square feet of cold storage facilities in proximity to Garden City Terminal.
The new Nordic facility will be developed and operated with resource expertise from Lucca Freezer and Cold Storage in Vineland, New Jersey. Acquired by AGRO Merchants in 2014, the Lucca facility serves as AGRO’s flagship U.S. perishable facility, serving customers in the U.S. and around the world.
“AGRO Merchants Group sees great opportunity to develop further capabilities at the Port of Savannah,” said Rusty Lucca, CEO of Lucca Freezer and Cold Storage. “Many of our customers are looking for warehouse and packing services in Savannah to more efficiently serve the Southeastern United States.”
