Today’s cold storage facilities are intelligent designs that use strict tactics to meet food safety standards while also maintaining delicate balance between temperature zones and climate control. Even in colder regions like the upper Midwest, cold storage warehouses face challenges that demand solutions like blast and room freezing, effective load picking, cross-docking, and more. At Minnesota Freezer Warehouse Company, our climate-controlled cold storage warehouse in Albert Lea, MN and Austin, MN provide coast-to-coast and border-to-border processing of global food shipments.
Our cold storage warehouse technologies offer the most state-of-the-art import, storage, inventory, and export capabilities that can be built into high-quality facilities.
However, even with these innovative systems, there are small challenges every cold storage warehouse faces largely due to operating temperatures. Some of the factors that can make a big impact include:
- Product Labeling: One main issue that cold storage warehouses face is labeling accuracy. Cold temperatures often harden label adhesive, causing lettering to crack and stickers to fall off. Labels and barcodes can also be obscured by frost and ice crystals. MFWC utilizes cold-proof labeling in-house and replaces any damaged labeling on imported loads.
- Warehouse Labeling: Like product labels and barcode inventory systems, racking designations can be obscured or damaged in cold storage. Our racking systems are organized to accommodate goods in high-density storage patterns that will guarantee exact climates between warehouse regions.
- Equipment: Workers in effective cold storage warehouse facilities rely on support equipment to get their jobs done safely and efficiently. Workers must also wear protective gear that includes thermal layers that may hinder quick and precise motions. This means equipment needs to be adjusted to fit worker motion and visibility in protective gear. Larger buttons, dials, and levers that workers can control with gloves on, bright or largely posted safety warnings, insulated mechanical equipment that can be operated without touch screens or other delicate controls, and well-integrated light or sound signals are all effective solutions to equipment issues that arise in a cold storage warehouse.
- Seasonal Cycles: Despite being an insulated, indoor environment with artificial climate and temperature control, a cold storage warehouse can still be affected by seasonal cycles. While the logistics of maintaining accurate climate control year-round is the main part of contending with season cycles, part of that also includes staff morale. At MFWC, we understand the importance of keeping track of the effects on mental and physical health that working in below-freezing temperatures the majority of each work week can have on our team members.
These are just some of the many challenges we find solutions for each day in our facilities. As a climate-controlled storage provider, we are committed to upholding food safety standards, protecting product quality, and providing a safe work environment with many other effective solutions. To learn more about our cold storage warehouse service in Albert Lea, MN, contact MFWC at (507) 373-1477 or info@mfwc-cold.com.