Manfredi Cold Storage keeps growing and improving
Manfredi Cold Storage keeps growing and improving
KENNETT SQUARE, PA — Manfredi Cold Storage keeps expanding and improving. And its customers keep coming.
Frank Manfredi, company president, noted a number of improvements that continue to serve his large customer base. About two-thirds of the product handled by Manfredi is fresh produce. Dairy, frozen baked goods and frozen and processed mushrooms are other items stored and shipped by the firm.
Frank Manfredi
Manfredi said avocado ripening room capacity “has significantly increased in the past 12 months. We have eight 24-pallet rooms,” allowing Manfredi to “service customers who don’t have the infrastructure to ripen their own product.” At the same time, “we have added another packingline” in the firm’s sister company, International Repack, which also features a new Volm-brand apple bagging line and a Daumar citrus bagging line.
“In the past year, we acquired the property next door, so (in July) we should have all the permits” to add an additional 150,000 square feet of refrigerated warehousing, he said.
A year ago, Manfredi expanded its rail siding to allow four reefer railcars to unload directly into the cold warehouse. The company now receives rail cars five days a week from the Northwest and the West Coast. “We will eventually expand to 10 cars,” he said.
With so much volume, “our biggest challenge now is truck turnaround as we move through the day. Our customers’ customers have gone to wanting more deliveries on a weekly basis. They don’t want more packages but they want more deliveries on the same amount of produce.” Manfredi is “working on ways to tackle that.”
In other good news, “With the economy gaining steam and the strong dollar — a great exchange rate — this will be one of our higher volume years.” Much of Manfredi’s business comes from storing and distributing international produce arriving in the ports of the Delaware River.
With corporate growth and a strong economy, “labor can be a challenge,” he said. “With increased pressure, we had to raise the pay significantly to attract warehouse labor. I see that trending only higher. The competition for labor now, with construction or other businesses in the ag sector,” drives workers to demand an attractive place to work. “We pay well. That’s the only alternative.”
