It’s no secret that with the rise of online retailers like Amazon, the online shopping market has been growing over the last decade with a sharp increase in recent years. But, did you know that this trend also applies to people purchasing meats, seafood and other refrigerated products online? With the rise of frozen and chilled goods being available via the internet, the need for cold storage has also drastically risen.
Local impact of increased online frozen food purchases
We’ve shared before that the rise in e-commerce has made it increasingly difficult to find adequate warehousing space. It’s even more difficult to find cold storage, also known as refrigerated warehousing. We at On Time Logistics frequently field calls from companies seeking refrigerated storage space, which we don’t currently offer.
In Northwest Arkansas and River Valley alone, you will find only seven local cold storage warehouses. All seven of these warehouses are operating at 90-100% capacity thanks largely to the large poultry industry gobbling up space.
The search in our satellite locations, Tulsa and Little Rock, produces similar scant availability. This means that if a company needs refrigerated storage space, they must go out-of-state to places like Joplin, Missouri, to find cold storage options.
Problems with building new refrigerated warehouse space
Most people would say that the simple solution is to build more refrigerated storage space; however, there are several problems with that solution.
Since the cost of building a large temperature-controlled storage warehouse is so high, many people are reluctant to take on the project. Similarly, building any warehouse space requires a high occupancy percentage under contract before construction will begin. This basically means that all the cold storage space at a warehouse is pretty much promised before the warehouse space has even been built. This leaves companies seeking space in existing or even newly built warehouses out in the proverbial cold.
The economy in Northwest Arkansas is growing at an almost startling rate. As a result, we see the need to build more and larger cold storage facilities in the area soon. With both Little Rock and Tulsa also growing, the need is also imminent in those locations as well.
While we don’t currently offer cold storage, we do offer temperature-controlled warehousing space. This means that if you and your company need to store or deliver inventory or even a small number of large items, we are able to meet those needs