Refrigeration is any of various types of cooling of a space, substance, or system to lower and/or maintain its temperature below the ambient one. Refrigeration is an artificial, or human-made, cooling method.
Food storage is a way of decreasing the variability of the food supply in the face of natural, inevitable variability. It allows food to be eaten for some time after harvest rather than solely immediately. It is both a traditional domestic skill and, in the form of food logistics, an important industrial and commercial activity. Food preservation, storage, and transport, including timely delivery to consumers, are important to food security, especially for the majority of people throughout the world who rely on others to produce their food.
Freezing food preserves it from the time it is prepared to the time it is eaten. Since early times, farmers, fishermen, and trappers have preserved grains and produce in unheated buildings during the winter season. Freezing food slows decomposition by turning residual moisture into ice, inhibiting the growth of most bacterial species. In the food commodity industry, there are two processes: mechanical and cryogenic. The freezing kinetics is important to preserve the food quality and texture. Quicker freezing generates smaller ice crystals and maintains cellular structure. Cryogenic freezing is the quickest freezing technology available due to the ultra low liquid nitrogen temperature −196 °C (−320 °F).
San Miguel Corporation, abbreviated as SMC, is a Philippine multinational conglomerate with headquarters in Mandaluyong, Metro Manila. The company is one of the largest and most diversified conglomerates in the Philippines. Originally founded in 1890 as a brewery, San Miguel has ventured beyond its core business, with investments in various sectors such as food and drink, finance, infrastructure, oil and energy, transportation, and real estate.
An ice house, or icehouse, is a building used to store ice throughout the year, commonly used prior to the invention of the refrigerator. Some were underground chambers, usually man-made, close to natural sources of winter ice such as freshwater lakes, but many were buildings with various types of insulation.
A refrigerator, commonly fridge, is a commercial and home appliance consisting of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump that transfers heat from its inside to its external environment so that its inside is cooled to a temperature below the room temperature. Refrigeration is an essential food storage technique around the world. The low temperature reduces the reproduction rate of bacteria, so the refrigerator lowers the rate of spoilage. A refrigerator maintains a temperature a few degrees above the freezing point of water. The optimal temperature range for perishable food storage is 3 to 5 °C. A freezer is a specialized refrigerator, or portion of a refrigerator, that maintains its contents’ temperature below the freezing point of water. The refrigerator replaced the icebox, which had been a common household appliance for almost a century and a half. The United States Food and Drug Administration recommends that the refrigerator be kept at or below 4 °C (40 °F) and that the freezer be regulated at −18 °C (0 °F).
SunTrust Banks, Inc. was an American bank holding company with SunTrust Bank as its largest subsidiary and assets of US$199 billion as of March 31, 2018. The bank's most direct corporate parent was established in 1891 in Atlanta, where it was headquartered.
Robert Winship Woodruff was an American businessman who served as the president of The Coca-Cola Company from 1923 until 1955. With a large net worth, he was also a major philanthropist, and many educational and cultural landmarks in the U.S. city of Atlanta, Georgia, bear his name. Included among these are the Woodruff Arts Center, Woodruff Park, and the Robert W. Woodruff Library.
Cold chain is a set of rules and procedures that ensure the systematic coordination of activities for ensuring temperature-control of goods while in storage and transit. The objective of a cold chain is to preserve the integrity and quality of goods such as pharmaceutical products or perishable good from production to consumption. Cold chain management earned its name as a "chain" because it involves linking a set of storage locations and special transport equipment, required for ensuring that temperature conditions for goods are met, while they are in storage or in transit from production to consumption, akin to the interconnected links of a physical chain.
An icemaker, ice generator, or ice machine may refer to either a consumer device for making ice, found inside a home freezer; a stand-alone appliance for making ice, or an industrial machine for making ice on a large scale. The term "ice machine" usually refers to the stand-alone appliance.
Ernest Woodruff, sometimes erroneously Earnest, was an American businessman from Atlanta, Georgia.
VersaCold is Canada’s largest supply chain company focused exclusively on the handling of temperature sensitive products.
The International Association of Refrigerated Warehouses (IARW) is an inter-warehouse organization. Founded in 1891, IARW was created when a group of conventional (non-refrigerated) warehouse owners began sharing knowledge about storing perishable food. As perishable food storage is complex, this organization soon became known industry-wide for their expertise about temperature controlled storage facilities.
Cold Storage is a Singaporean multinational supermarket company currently owned by DFI Retail Group. Its parent company also operates Market Place stores, now branded as Cold Storage Fresh, as well as the Giant hypermarket brand, and has various other supermarkets around Asia including Hero and Wellcome.
Total Logistic Control is a supply chain company started around 1902 by George K. Taylor. The company began as a regional distributor of frozen products known as Taylor Cold Storage. They operated frozen warehouse operations for other regional food companies in Great Lakes region. Around 1930, they merged with Wisconsin Cold Storage. In 1958, Taylor became the first public refrigerated warehouse to offer consolidated LTL distribution to its customers. In the 1960s, their total freezer capacity hit 10,000,000 cu ft (280,000 m3). Taylor introduced TINMAN, the Total INformation MANagement system, in 1976, becoming the first firm in the industry to offer online inventory management.
New Orleans Cold Storage and Warehouse Co. is an American company providing refrigerated warehousing in the US port cities of New Orleans, Houston and Charleston. Facilities include refrigerated storage and blast freezing, and they maintain USDA and foreign export certifications for meat and poultry.
The International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR), is an independent intergovernmental science and technology-based organization which promotes knowledge of refrigeration and associated technologies and applications on a global scale that improve quality of life in a cost-effective and environmentally sustainable manner, including:
Congebec Logistics is a Quebec City, Quebec based company that provides cold and multi-temperature storage, warehousing and distribution services. It is the second largest refrigerated logistics services provider in Canada. Congebec is considered the 11th largest refrigerated storage company in North America and 18th largest in the world by the International Association of Refrigerated Warehouses (IARW).
2800 Polar Way is a cold storage facility located in Richland, Washington, United States, where it dominates the northern landscape. It is both the largest refrigerated warehouse and the largest automated freezer on Earth. Holliday Fenoglio Fowler (HFF) financed the build-to-suit refrigerated warehouse for tenant Preferred Freezer Services. The project broke ground on May 12, 2014, and opened in late July 2015.
Lineage, Inc. is the world's largest temperature-controlled warehouse real estate investment trust (REIT), owned by Bay Grove, LLC. Entering international markets in 2017, Lineage grew into the world's largest refrigerated warehousing company with a capacity exceeding 3 billion cubic feet and acquiring more than 100 companies through the end of 2023. Lineage operates over 450 facilities across 18 countries, with approximately 26,000 team members globally in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.
