Americold
Americold is a temperature controlled warehousing and transportation company based in Atlanta, Georgia, and is considered one of the pioneers of the modern commercialized temperature-controlled warehouse for the storage of perishable goods.
History
Food Preservation takes many forms. Chilling and freezing has become the most popular as it best preserves the original, intended flavors of products. And as temperature control processes evolved beyond relying on the dynamic lifespan of an ice block, then chilled and frozen foods could be transported further from their sources.
Although the technique of preserving fish was arguably first used by British fishermen in 1797, Clarence Birdseye is considered the founder of the modern frozen food industry. His understanding of the benefits of fast (now called blast) freezing in preserving fish arguably led to our modern day ability to supply you with all of the things you enjoy, no matter where you live or what the time of year is.
It's not only TV dinners that get the chilled or frozen treatment, but anything and everything we eat or drink that needs to arrive in a specific condition. There is a huge operation between the farm or production facility and local supermarket shelves that include hundreds and thousands of people, trucks, conveyors, robots, IT systems, warehouses, vans, trains, ships, planes, pizza delivery guys and girls, solar panels, insulation, material handling equipment, labels, temp-checkers, research, analysis, chefs, restaurants, bars, food trucks and the list goes on and on...
Once food preservation using ice became commercialized then cold storage companies began to appear. Ice was farmed from lakes during the winter, and stored, surrounded by straw to insulate it, so that it could be used well into early summer. Ice houses and ice warehouses began to appear and companies sold the ice for domestic and commercial use.
Americold's history be traced to the early 20th century right around the time of the first Ice and Coal companies. Americold came from mergers and acquisitions involving Atlanta Ice and Coal Company, Atlanta City Brewing Company (later known as Atlanta Brewing and Ice Company,) Versacold, Munford, Jackson Atlantic, United Refrigerated Services, and Atlas Cold Storage (formerly known as Georgia Freezer) and others.
In 1903, Ernest Woodruff merged three cold storage warehouses to form Atlantic Ice and Coal Company. Later, Woodruff moved on and bought and ran [1]Coca Cola among other projects and businesses that this entrepreneur had.
Atlantic Ice & Coal Company changed names to Atlantic Company and began to expand into a variety of different businesses, including cold storage and beer production in 1935, the latter contributing up to 50% of the company’s revenues at its peak.
Atlantic Company diversified into ice convenience store development with EZ stores, before household refrigerators were commonplace, and even tried fast food service with Wishbone Fried Chicken.
Atlantic Company merged with Munford Do it Yourself stores and became Atlantic-Munford, driving rapid convenience store growth.
The company then merged with Jackson Minit Market and Handy Andy, and renamed to become Jackson Atlantic, growing to 40 warehouses in the USA - one of the largest warehouse networks at the time. The company went public in 1968 and, a few years later, merged with United Refrigerated Services, then set out on a path to develop the USA’s most comprehensive cold storage network.
Atlanta, GA becomes the company’s home again in the early 1980s.
Acquisitions and mergers continued during the 80s and 90s with the company's current name, Americold, appearing in 1997.
In 2010, Americold acquired Versacold to become the largest temperature-controlled warehousing and distribution services provider in the world.
Services
Americold offers temperature controlled warehousing along with consolidation and multi-vendor consolidation transportation programs. Value added services complement typical warehousing and distribution services and include blast freezing, pick n pack, labeling/relabeling, repacking, kitting, staging, cross-dock, sloughing/tempering, plus light assembly and food processing services. Americold owns and operates over 175 temperature-controlled warehouses, with more than 1 billion cubic feet of storage, in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, China, Argentina and Canada. Americold’s warehouses are an integral component of the supply chain connecting food producers, processors, distributors, and retailers to consumers.
Organization
Americold has more than 185 locations world wide.
Americold owns and operates a quarry in Carthage Underground both for the stone excavated and using the underground caverns and refrigerated storage chambers.