As a third generation assumes control, this family-run Oregon business continues to expand and diversify its offerings
Written by Ulrika G. GerthPaul Lafferty has done it. So have his sons, Peter and Mike. And his grandson, Jason Lafferty, is no stranger to it either. They all have, at some point or other, spent the night in the office as trucks have rolled in to their massive cold storage facilities in Eugene and Albany, Ore., to pick up items in the wee hours.
It is that commitment to customer service that also sees the entire management team operate the forklift and handle field calls directly from clients.
“Truly, the buck stops with us,” said Jason Lafferty, 34, General Manager of Eugene Freezing & SnoTemp. “We take care of it. When something needs to be handled, it is handled by us.”
Their hard work has served the company of 50 employees well, from the time Paul Lafferty founded Eugene Freezing & Storage in 1957, to the expansion to Albany and SnoTemp Cold Storage in 1974, to another $14-million addition scheduled for completion in the spring of 2010. In mid-July, as if the economic crisis did not exist, the new 100,000sf cold storage facility will break ground in Albany, helping customers save money on freight at a time when every penny counts.
A major supply chain link
In the concrete reinforced warehouses, where the temperature ranges from -18F to no more than 40F and insulation is 11 inches thick, Eugene Freezing & Sno Temp serves both local and national customers, storing such huge quantities of vegetables, ice-cream and ready-for-market products that a Sam’s Club seems like a convenience store by comparison. Together the 175,000sf Eugene facility and its 275,000sf Albany counterpart, hold 11 million cubic feet of frozen space, sport 34 enclosed truck bays, and handle railcars delivered from both the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe.
Big companies like Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc., and National Frozen Foods, Corp., rely on Eugene Freezing & Sno Temp, as do locally-based companies such as Kettle Foods, Nancy’s Cultured Dairy and Soy Yogurt, Oregon Ice Cream, Eugene’s Turtle Mountain, Inc., and Oregon Freeze Dry.
“Many think of cold storage as being pretty static, but it’s really where it all happens,” Lafferty said.
His sister, Paula Lafferty, 25, the company’s Business Information Manager, continues:
“When I explain what we do to people, it’s remarkable that so many don’t know where their food comes from,” she said. “People don’t realize the huge infrastructure required to get quality food out. It’s amazing that I can walk into Whole Foods anywhere in the country and see some of our small customers that come right out of here in Eugene.”
Eugene Freezing & Sno Temp enters the supply chain after the crops have been harvested, then cleaned, sliced, diced, packaged and frozen into 1,000-pound totes by the processor. Stacked in pallets as high as 25 feet, the products are then stored according to the elaborate regulations on food safety and sanitation before they either are shipped to their customers’ customer to become meal ingredients, or transported back to the processor to end up in bags available on the grocery store shelves.
It is an environment where the Laffertys have found their comfort zone. Paula Lafferty started working summers at age 15 and Jason Lafferty grew up sweeping the docks - as have countless other family members. Paul Lafferty, who started out working for his father’s wholesale grocery business, R.E. Lafferty & Sons, saw in the 1950s a need for a refrigerated warehouse to serve the growing agricultural industry in the southern Willamette Valley. The 17,000sf cold storage warehouse that he built in 1957 is still in use today.
Both facilities have the unique opportunity to strategically locate a food processor or related type industry on site. The Albany facility has almost 20 adjacent acres while the Eugene facility has nearly seven.
Transition and evolution
Peter Lafferty, a Mechanical Engineer, U.S. Navy veteran and President of Eugene Freezing & SnoTemp; and his brother, Mike Lafferty, a former Olympic downhill ski racer and Vice President, are slowly making plans for retirement as Jason, unofficially, is transitioning to take the helm.
“I decided to give it a shot,” he says of returning to the family business after graduating from Kenyon College with a biology degree and spending four years in Vail, CO as a ski racing instructor and event manager. “I thought I’d stay for a year or two but found that in this industry there are great people, great staff and daily challenges, that from a business point of view make every day intriguing.”
With his arrival in 2001 came a new focus on technology that Paula Lafferty has capitalized upon. The company now boasts a new paperless accounting system, in-house e-mail and shared file system, in-house payroll and updated Warehouse Management Systems. A host of energy efficiency measures will also cut the energy bill of the new warehouse by 60 percent. High-speed, energy-efficient doors already have been installed in Eugene and a lighting retrofit is being planned in cooperation with the local utility.
“I think we’ve always been ahead of the curve in what is now called sustainability,” Jason Lafferty says. “All buildings were built with an eye on energy efficiency.”
“Most of all,” he adds, “Paula has laid a fantastic foundation for future technological upgrades that will further drive efficiency and provide better customer service.”
View Digital Corporate Profile of Eugene Freezing in Supply Chain Digital July 2009