Lineage recently increased its participation in the EPA’s SmartWay transport partnership and revealed an expansion of its Hobart, Indiana, cold storage facility is underway.
The temperature-controlled solutions provider previously participated in the SmartWay program as a logistics/multimodal partner. The company’s North American fleets, which include approximately 500 trucks, now are registered as SmartWay transport partners, Lineage reported. The company’s Canadian fleet also is recognized as a SmartWay transport partner by Natural Resources Canada’s Office of Energy Efficiency.
The voluntary public-private SmartWay program helps companies track, document, and share information about fuel use and freight emissions within a structured framework for evaluating the environmental impact and energy efficiency of goods transported across supply chains. According to the EPA, the SmartWay program has enabled its partners to save 379 million barrels of oil since 2004.
“Lineage is one step closer to achieving its goal of net-zero emissions by 2040 through our participation in SmartWay’s program,” Greg Bryan, Lineage chief integrated solutions officer, said in a news release. “The company continues to invest in opportunities toward making our operations more sustainable, and these SmartWay registrations underscore Lineage’s commitment to reducing our environmental footprint through the reduction of fuel consumption and emissions.”
Hobart, Indiana, facility expansion
The expansion of Lineage’s Hobart facility is expected to more than double capacity and add automated capabilities when completed in summer 2025, the company said.
As planned, the expansion will transform the current Hobart site with the addition of a fully automated warehouse spanning more than 188,000 sq. ft. with approximately 58,000 pallet positions. The facility will feature advanced automation capabilities for inbound, outbound, and layer picking, optimizing the process of picking and organizing thousands of cases daily.
“We are excited for the expansion of our Hobart warehouse, which will allow us to better serve our customers delivering to retail and foodservice markets,” Bryan said. “Not only will this major investment bring more automation and innovation to our network, but it will also help to accelerate our efforts with the Velocities MVC [multi-vendor consolidation] program that has proven successful in optimizing customer shipments and scheduled deliveries.”
The existing Hobart facility is already home to one of the region’s MVC programs and serves as a link in Lineage’s Canada cross-border program. The expansion of the site will help centralize these operations and provide additional capacity for customers, including nearly 100,000 traditional and automated pallet position spaces and 76 total dock doors. Lineage also expects the project to create more than 100 new jobs.
