Vernon’s Baker Commodities Inc. plans to build what would be the only cold storage warehouse within the local port complex.
The company recently acquired a piece of private land on Pier B at the Port of Long Beach and hopes to break ground in the next few months on a 196,000-square-foot refrigerated facility where fresh and frozen foods would be loaded for export and where imports would be unloaded and processed for distribution.
Baker, which owns other cold storage facilities as well as rendering plants, would own the building. Operations would be handled by Colton company Lineage Logistics, which runs other Baker facilities. Bill Hendricksen, chief executive of Lineage, said the Pier B site is ideal because of its proximity to the port and to Pier B Street, one of several roads on which overweight vehicles can operate.
That’s key for many logistics companies that load or unload shipping containers with heavy products.
“We definitely want to be in the overweight zone,” Hendricksen said. “That will facilitate the most economical movement of our customers’ goods.”
While the facility would be the only cold storage warehouse in the port complex, three cold storage warehouses operate in nearby Wilmington.
“We obviously believe there’s room for an additional facility,” Hendrickson said. “We’re confident there’s business there for ourselves and our competitors.”
Herbal Deal
A Northern California horticulture company has acquired Pico Rivera’s HerbThyme Farms Inc., the nation’s largest grower and distributor of fresh-cut herbs, in part because of HerbThyme’s distribution network.
In acquiring HerbThyme, Salinas company Rocket Farms Herbs Inc. and its parent company, Monterey Peninsula Horticulture Inc., will get more than 300 acres of farmland as well as herb packing and distribution centers in Pico Rivera, Illinois, New Jersey and Florida. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Rocket Farms grows and sells potted plants, such as orchids and poinsettias, as well as potted herbs. Charles Kosmont, the company’s chief executive, said with HerbThyme his company will have a presence in both the potted- and fresh-cut-herb markets, both growing consumer categories. He also said Rocket Farms, which distributes mostly in the West, will use HerbThyme’s facilities to expand distribution in the East and Midwest.
“You may find us expanding to other parts of the country,” he Kosmont said. “Part of the benefit of this is that it does give us more distribution sites.”
HerbThyme’s senior management and most of its 500 employees will stay with the company, according to a statement from Rocket Farms.
Home Port
French ocean carrier CMA CGM Group will start sending more ships to the Port of Long Beach. The Marseilles, France, company announced last week it will become part of a joint venture that operates the port’s Pier J.
CMA CGM, the world’s third largest ocean carrier, is one of the few major shippers that did not have a dedicated terminal at one of the San Pedro Bay ports. Last year, it moved about 381,000 containers through the ports, about 30 percent of those through the Port of Los Angeles.
CMA CGM will share Pier J with Shanghai’s China Ocean Shipping Corp.
The move means Long Beach will see more CMA CGM ships and cargo. That’s good news for the port, which in 2010 lost major tenant Hyundai Merchant Marine to the Port of Los Angeles. Cargo numbers shrank at Long Beach for much of this year but rebounded in November in part because of more CMA CGM ship calls.
Port officials estimate CMA CGM’s commitment to Long Beach will mean an additional 2.6 million containers moving through the port in the next five years, as well as $70 million in additional port revenue over that time.
Industry Expansion
Houston logistics company Port Logistics Group is doubling down in Southern California, recently renewing its lease on a 350,000-square-foot warehouse in the City of Industry and taking out a lease on an adjacent building of the same size.
The company will move into the second building, at 18215 E. Rowland St., in April.
The Industry site is a hub for Port Logistics’ apparel-handling business. Workers there unload and sort apparel for distribution to retailers. With the new facility, Port Logistics leases more than 1.5 million square feet of warehouse and distribution space in the L.A. area.
Financial terms of the renewal and new lease were not disclosed. Both buildings are owned by Industry’s Majestic Realty Co. Port Logistics was represented by New York’s Studley Inc.
Staff reporter James Rufus Koren can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 225.
