Wagering on population growth

LAS VEGAS is the largest city in Nevada and one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States. With the odds in its favor, Ice Cold Storage of Nevada also is positioned to continue growing quickly as a public cold storage and distribution center. A little north of downtown Las Vegas, the company's custom-built 100,000 sq-ft low-temperature facility has 2.8 million cu ft of convertible space with temperatures ranging from -20 to +32 degrees F, and 10,000 sq ft of office space.

This business grew from a vision of Martin Evanson, founder of Jobbers Meat Packing of Vernon (in east of Los Angeles), California. Founded in 1978, the company provides beef processing, portioning, grinding, and exporting services for a wide range of customers, including brokers, food distributors, institutions, and the military.

When Jobbers Meat Packing moved into its new, expanded facility in 1991, it included cooler space, freezer space, and a blast freezer. Blast freezing is a process where fans blow and circulate cold air within a confined space to rapidly reduce the temperature of a product.

Evanson built the temperature-controlled portion of his facility large enough so his friends in the meat business could use it as well. This move paid off handsomely, growing into a separate business, called Ice Cold Storage. Established in 1991, that business grew quickly to capacity.

Always seeking additional business opportunities and looking to capitalize on the growth of the expanding Las Vegas metropolitan area — the population of which has increased by more than 83% since April 1990, Evanson came upon a real estate chance to purchase land in North Las Vegas. He had long envisioned building an industry park in Las Vegas expressly for food processors. At the center of the park would be a refrigerated warehouse, offering services specific to their needs and requirements.

Initial setback

The land was purchased and Ice Cold Storage of Nevada opened in July 2001. “This was all done before we had even lined up any customers,” said Jay Anderson, its general manager. “A short time later 9/11 happened — that day when hijacked jetliners crashed into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington, DC, and that considerably slowed down tourism in Nevada.”

Some 36,000,000 visitors came to Las Vegas in 2000, with an economic impact of almost $8 billion, so “you can imagine how our start-up took a big hit as well. But we worked through it, and now we're about at 85% capacity and have about 110 regular customers.”

Ice Cold Storage of Nevada is strategically located off Interstate-15 — the main Interstate running through Las Vegas that goes from Los Angeles, California, to Salt Lake City, Utah, about 200 yards from the easy off/easy on Craig Road exit. To capitalize on its proximity to the Interstate, “we have a huge sign on the building to promote the business and make it easy for truckers to find us,” Anderson said.

Metropolitan Las Vegas is a hub for the distribution of goods, Anderson said. Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Albuquerque, and Boise are all within 500 miles that can be reached overnight by truck. Within that 500-mile radius is a population of some 60 million people. The majority of Ice Cold Storage of Nevada's business comes from food distributors that have overflow or want a place to put excess inventory.

No appointments

“One thing that makes us unique is that we do not require appointments,” said Anderson, who attributed this as one of the reasons for the business' success. “We work on a first come first serve basis during our normal operating hours of 7:00 am to 4:30 pm Monday through Friday, although special arrangements can be made for other times.

“Appointments and delays are the number one complaint of transportation companies. They typically have to make an appointment at least a day in advance, and if they miss that appointment, they usually miss their next stop.”

One aspect of Ice Cold Storage of Nevada's business is helping out food-service suppliers such as Sysco and US Food Service that are each located about five miles away. “When they have situations where a carrier misses a set appointment or arrives at the appointed time but will be tied up for hours, the companies will send the trucks to us and we will overnight store their loads,” Anderson said, “and then arrange for next-day delivery back to them.”

Also nearby are dealers for Thermo King and Carrier Transicold. They, too, will send trucks to Ice Cold Storage of Nevada to off-load if the truck has reefer problems. In such instances, the products are stored on a short-term basis. After the repairs are made, the trucker can return and reload without worrying about maintaining the temperature of the product. “We can cross-dock or store the products for as long as is necessary,” Anderson said.

Cross-docking is a system where products are received and transferred to outbound trucks, but never stored. The transfer may involve breaking down loads into customer specified units.

When product is received at Ice Cold Storage of Nevada, warehouse personnel take the temperature and review the overall condition. The product is then barcoded for quick, accurate inventory control and management, and then warehoused or cross-docked.

In-state transportation

Another service devised to help customers is its pick-up and delivery services, with available same day service, but only for Nevada. For this, Ice Cold Storage of Nevada operates two diesel-powered International trucks, each with a 22-foot Morgan body that can handle 10 pallets, and a Waltco foldout liftgate. One truck uses a Carrier Transicold refrigeration unit; the other has a Thermo King unit. Each truck usually makes between four to six deliveries per day.

“These trucks can more easily get in and out of the Las Vegas Strip, with its many restaurants and casinos, than can tractor trailers,” said Anderson. Customers also take advantage of the delivery service so their own trucks don't have to be tied up in the always bumper-to-bumper four-mile long portion of Las Vegas Boulevard South which makes up The Strip, or be bothered by the 15,000 miles of lighted neon on The Strip and downtown.

What's more, Anderson added, by having Ice Cold Storage of Nevada handle their deliveries, carriers can avoid Nevada's always congested traffic. The average daily automobile traffic for all major highways in 2006 was 86,961 vehicles.

“We don't want to be in the transportation business,” said Anderson, “so we don't do out-of-state pick-ups and deliveries. For that, we have a list of carriers that go to different destinations, along with their delivery schedules, that we pass on to customers. And we are always looking to expand this list.”

Ice Cold Storage of Nevada also does just-in-time (JIT) inventory control, freight consolidation/pooled shipping management, rail service loading and unloading (a rail spur is two miles away), and sequence loading/pallet assembly.

“We have some customers who don't have facilities in Nevada,” he said. “For example, we have customers on the East Coast that ship their products to us to store and delivery for them as needed.

“We also do sample shipments, where a customer has us pull samples of the products we are storing, package them up and then expedite them — usually by FedEx or UPS — to their prospects and customers. We're doing this three to four times a week.”

Warehouse setup

Ice Cold Storage of Nevada's warehouse has 14 dock doors and one ramp door to allow loading of trucks that are not dock height, such as vans and small delivery trucks. All of the dock doors have Rite-Hite Vertical Storing Hydraulic Dock Levelers. “Because they store vertically, the overhead doors close to the pit floor, which helps keep out debris and allows for easy, routine cleaning and maintenance,” said Anderson. “We haven't had a problem with any of them since day one.”

For restraining trucks to the docks for safer loading and unloading, Ice Cold Storage of Nevada uses Rite-Hite Dok-Loks. All doors are alarmed, with video surveillance inside and out. “Our entire facility is secure and sanitary,” he added.

There are five warehousemen, all of which are crossed trained, that strictly receive product, pick orders and load. For loads where a driver may need help unloading, a lumping (hired labor) service is called. “We found this more cost effective than having our own lumpers because it was difficult keeping them busy enough to justify the expense,” according to Anderson.

Ice Cold Storage of Nevada uses an RFID (radio frequency identification) system from Psion Teklogix for barcoding all incoming freight, in conjunction with Provia Software (the company was recently purchased by Infor) for inventory management. The technologies allow the company to help maximize productivity by minimizing travel time and reducing pick times for faster, more accurate order fulfillment.

An assortment of Raymond electric lift trucks and pallet jacks were chosen because of their reliable performance, Anderson said.

As part of its overall RFID inventory management system, the lift trucks are outfitted with Psion Teklogix cold storage warehouse mobile computers for data collection and management. These were selected, said Anderson, because they are designed to withstand extremely cold temperatures, as well as operate in quickly fluctuating temperatures, such as moving products in and out of freezers.

Multi-Temp storage

Entry from the warehouse to any of the freezers or the one cooler is done through a refrigerated vestibule. All have bi-parting Rite-Hite insulated doors made from foam-core panels rather than metal, which helps prevent frost buildup and better withstands abuse from lift trucks, Anderson said. A safety feature of the doors is that if they encounter an object while closing, they automatically reverse direction. Doors are operated by both pull cords and automatic sensors.

The total freezer space is about 2.4 million cu ft. One freezer contains the blast freezer, which is about 100,000 cu ft. It can go down to -65 degrees F wind chill within two hours. The size of the cooler is 400,000 cu ft.

For storing inventory, Ice Cold Storage of Nevada has chosen 5- and 6-tier hot-rolled structural steel rack systems made by Frazier of Long Valley, New Jersey. They are assembled to accommodate both regular- and tall-size pallets. There are 7,500 individually racked pallet positions. Product protection includes sprinkler and alarm systems.

Customer types

In addition to Anderson and the five warehouse personnel, two customer assistants handle the shipping and receiving department. A comptroller and two administrative people make up Ice Cold Storage of Nevada, which services all types and sizes of customers. It can accommodate any size shipment, from a couple of cases to full trailer loads. Of its 100-plus customers, only about 40% are local, the rest are nationwide, with a few in Canada.

“Our success has been guided by the business philosophy that service is our specialty,” said Anderson. “And we plan to keep on growing.” There is already a vision to double capacity.

Evanson's food processors industrial park in North Las Vegas is also developing. Construction will soon begin on a 40,000-sq-ft tilt-up concrete facility with four equal compartments. The spaces are anticipated to be available for occupancy in early spring of 2008.