I recently emptied my entire kitchen of all its contents in preparation for a complete renovation. In the process, I managed to fill not one but two rooms with all the gear I own.* Those piles of cookware, appliances, tools, and utensils are the result of a longstanding kitchenware shopping compulsion that would be troublesome if not for the fact that it's in the service of my job. I've shopped just about everywhere to acquire all this stuff—online, retail kitchen stores, and restaurant supply depots—and I have some thoughts on which sources are best for which things.
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*Actually, that's not entirely accurate...I've got way more stuff than that. The rest is stashed in closets and cupboards throughout my apartment. But remember, I'm a collector, not a hoarder.
If there's one shopping option home cooks should take better advantage of, it's the restaurant supply store. I get it—they're huge stores, often confusingly organized, and tend to have the type of customer service you'd expect from a place that mostly deals with professionals who know exactly what they want...which is to say, very little. Despite this, I highly recommend you visit your local restaurant supply store—you're likely to find some incredible deals on workhorse equipment that can take a beating and then some.
Here are some of the items you're often better off buying at a restaurant supply store. And if you don't have a restaurant supply store in your state, you can find similar places online, like WebstaurantStore.
Propane Torch
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
I always chuckle when I see those $50 mini crème brûlée propane torches sold by retail kitchenware stores. They perform like dinky little toys, boasting very little of the fuel capacity and firepower of their heavier duty counterparts. Do yourself a favor: if you want a torch in your kitchen, do what the pros do and buy a full-size one at a restaurant supply (or, frankly, a hardware store). They're easy to use, safe (as with anything, just follow the instructions), and will deliver enough flame to keep you fired up for years to come. I've seen them sold for as little as $15.
Food Mill
Serious Eats / Daniel Gritzer
Not everyone needs a food mill at home—I only use mine a few times a year at most. But they can be incredibly useful for certain things, like mashing large batches of potatoes and quickly separating skin and seeds from the pulp when making tomato sauce from fresh tomatoes. The problem is, I have yet to find a food mill designed for the home cook that's worth a damn: they're just too small and weak to handle even the most modest of tasks. If you decide that a food mill is a worthwhile investment for the type of cooking you do, the only kind you should even consider are the ones sold to restaurants. They're larger and way more powerful, which means they'll actually be able to do the job right.
Cutting Boards
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
There are two things I want my primary cutting boards to be: really big and really thick. Smaller boards might work for slicing a lemon into wedges for a drink, but the cutting and chopping necessary for most recipes requires surface area, and plenty of it, lest all your handiwork go spilling off onto the countertop. Thickness, meanwhile, is important because thin boards—both wood and plastic—are more prone to warping over time. Most home kitchenware stores have a frustratingly small selection of piddly little planks that look more like clipboards than cutting boards. Where are you going to find a huge selection of sizeable cutting boards that won't break the bank? You guessed it: restaurant supply stores.
Cheap Knives
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
I'm as passionate about high-end knives as the next cooking nerd, but that doesn't mean every knife I own has to be hand-hammered from some rare steel. In my newest chef's knife review, I have an option for any budget. Cheap knives have their place in the kitchen too. For starters, I'm a big believer in paying as little for paring knives as possible—my favorites are inexpensive Victorinox ones (view at Amazon), which are more than adequate for just about any paring-knife task. I also try to get less expensive serrated knives (since there's no easy way to resharpen them once they lose their bite) and task-specific knives that I use infrequently, like filleting knives for fish. It's also always useful to have a couple junky knives around to abuse without worrying about the damage you're doing to the blade. If you're looking for a good, cheap cleaver, Kenji has already talked about the virtues of the inexpensive options at a lot of Chinese restaurant supply stores. Beyond that, any restaurant supply store is a good bet for finding a large selection to meet all of your budget knife needs.
Mixing Bowls
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
Sometimes I'm shocked by the price tags I see on mixing bowl sets, especially when you consider that the largest bowl is often several sizes smaller than what you sometimes need. At most restaurant supply stores, you'll find stainless steel bowls—the only material we generally recommend for mixing bowls—ranging from itty-bitty to vessels so large you could practically bathe in them, and everything in between. The bowls are sold individually, not as sets, giving you the freedom to pick and choose only the bowl sizes you need (and even doubling or tripling up on the most useful ones).
Food Storage Containers
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
Good storage containers are some of the hardest things to find for your home kitchen. I rely a little too heavily on plastic pint and quart containers, which I love for holding wet foods and for freezing liquids like stock, but they can break down and crack over time. The alternatives at most fancy kitchenware stores are either clunky glass vessels which don't nest well, or expensive plastic ones that'll bankrupt you if you actually buy as many as you need. My favorite solution for smaller storage containers are the rectangular metal ones that are sometimes sold as steam-table inserts. They come in a variety of useful depths and sizes (I find that the "sixth" and "ninth" sizes are the most handy), nest extremely well, and are sturdy enough to live through years and years of use. For larger sizes, you can stock up on plastic Cambro containers—they're great for holding dry goods like sugar and flour, for instance.
Baking Sheets and Racks
I use rimmed baking sheets for more than just baking (actually, I almost never bake, so I use them for everything except baking). Half-sheets are the most standard size in home kitchens, but I use the smaller quarter-sheets just as often—they're particularly helpful for organizing your ingredient prep without taking over your countertop or refrigerator shelves the way the bigger ones do. Restaurant supply stores sell all the sizes, including full-sheet trays (which are too big to be practical for most home cooks), and they usually have them in nice, thick, heavy-duty aluminum for cheap. Plus, you can pick up matching wire racks for each sheet tray you buy, which not only help when cooling cookies after baking, but also can be used to elevate meats above the tray when roasting, allowing for maximum air circulation.
Cheap Heavy-Bottomed Stainless Steel Cookware
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
Investing in quality cookware can be a very, very expensive undertaking. You want the metal of most of your stainless steel skillets and saucepans to be thick enough to minimize hot spots and efficiently conduct and retain heat. One option is buying cookware with cladding that goes up the sides, which helps prevent scorching on the walls and corners of the pan. But fully-clad pans are expensive to produce, leading to price tags that are easily one or two hundred dollars apiece. A cheaper option: pans with a thick metal disc on the bottom and thin side walls, a construction that restaurant supply stores tend to stock. For most tasks, they perform perfectly well, and the cost savings can be significant. If you're just starting to build your cookware collection, this type of pan is one of your better bets.
Carbon Steel Pans
I've written a lot about why I love carbon steel pans—they offer some of the heat retention properties of cast iron, but in a slightly lighter, thinner, more nest-able form. The problem is, they can be hard to find, especially at home-cookware stores. Thanks to carbon steel's popularity in France, and therefore French-influenced kitchens, lots of restaurants continue to use carbon steel, which means restaurant suppliers often keep them on the shelves.
Nonstick Pans
For most types of pots and pans, buying the cheapest product is rarely the smartest option: that low price usually guarantees poor construction and less-than-ideal thickness of the metal. But when it comes to nonstick, the cheaper the better (well, to a point, anyway). That's because the nonstick coating is unlikely to last more than a few years, even if you're careful with it. And once the coating is compromised, the only option is to buy a new pan. That's why, just like toothbrushes and underwear, you should approach nonstick cookware with the intention of replacing it often—spend too much and you'll be reluctant to let it go, even if it's clearly well past its expiration date. Not a good thing. All you really need are two cheap nonstick aluminum skillets, a smaller 8-inch (good for individual omelets) and a larger 10- or 12-inch (good for a family-sized frittata)—just be sure not to get extremely thin-gauge aluminum since it can warp even before the coating is shot.
Stainless Spoons and Whisks
If I wanted to, I could make this article ten times longer, listing every small tool sold at restaurant supply stores: waiter's corkscrews and bottle openers, squeeze bottles, tongs, ladles, and more. The basic ones are more than adequate in many cases, and cheaper than some of the upscale alternatives you'll find at retail shops. I'll skip all that, though, since it opens up debates about things like whether locking tongs with rubber grips are preferable at home (a valid argument, by the way). I'll let you wander the aisles at your local restaurant supply to decide which little gizmos are worth grabbing and which aren't. But at the very least, consider picking up some stainless steel spoons, slotted and solid, and a whisk or two. The spoons are endlessly handy and only cost a buck or two at most, and restaurant supply stores tend to stock heavier-duty whisks, which can sometimes be nice to have (you can even roughly mash potatoes with them if you don't have a dedicated potato masher).
Roasting Pan
Roasting pans are among the most expensive of all cookware items, and they're also among the most useless. If you're not clear on why fancy roasting pans are a waste of money, you should go read Kenji's article here. And then when you're done, visit a restaurant supply store to buy what's known as a hotel pan. It's the same size and depth as a roasting pan, and works just as well in almost all instances. As for cost, is $15 cheap enough? That's the price I saw on my most recent trip to a restaurant supply store.
Vegetable Peelers
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
Anyone who has limited experience with a y-shaped vegetable peeler tends to be very skeptical when I tell them it's far superior to the stick ones most folks have at home. But I swear it's true, and with enough practice, I'm confident almost everyone will come to agree with me. After all, it's not an accident that it's the type of peeler almost every professional uses. My favorite kind is made by Kuhn Rikon and has a carbon steel blade. These peelers, though, are at their best when those blades are still sharp and fresh, which means replacing them with some frequency. I buy several at a time when I visit the restaurant supply store, which usually is enough to keep me in stock until my next visit.
Kitchen Towels
Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik
I totally get the visual appeal of spendy kitchen towels—I mean, who doesn't want to pretend they live in a Kinfolk photo spread. But real cooks cook—it can be messy, and when it's messy, you don't want to soak up grease and beet juices with something that costs more than the food itself. You need kitchen towels that you can abuse without worrying about how much you'll have to pay to replace them. Once again, the restaurant supply is a great source.
This is your ultimate guide to cold storage warehouses.
In it, you’ll learn:
What cold storage warehousing is
Who uses cold storage warehousing
How cold storage works
The types of cold storage warehouses (with examples)
How to choose a cold storage warehouse
Tips for working safely in cold storage warehouses
Let’s dive in!
What Is Cold Storage Warehousing?
Cold storage warehousing involves the storing of perishable or other sensitive goods like food, medicines, and artwork at a specific temperature range to maintain their integrity, shelf-life, and quality.
Who Needs Cold Storage?
Any product or item that can degrade easily or lose its integrity when subjected to temperature fluctuations needs cold storage.
Chilling or freezing these sensitive goods helps slow their physical and chemical changes, which preserve their purity while inhibiting biological decay.
The ultimate goal of cold storage warehousing is to allow the movement of these products to end-users while maintaining the highest quality.
Foods like fresh produce, meat and seafood, dairy, processed foods, and frozen foods
Nutritional supplements like perishable nutrient products
Botanicals such as flowers and plants
Bio-pharmaceuticals like medicines, vaccines, blood samples, IVs, and certain dental materials
Books and artwork like historical documents, paintings, and film canisters
Craft goods like candles (as they can lose their shape or color or melt if kept in high heat)
Cosmetics such as lipstick and cologne
Chemicals like reagents and disinfectants (these require cold storage to slow down their chemical reactions)
Organic textiles including fur, wool, and hides
Specialized products like aircraft components
Restaurants and food outlets
Supermarkets and food service firms
Importers and exporters
Frozen food producers
Agricultural producers
Pharmaceuticals and healthcare institutions
Cold storage is a key player in the industrial real estate sector.
Here are some key facts about its size in the United States:
Cold storage accounted for 3.6 billion cubic feet of all warehouse space in 2017
The market size of cold storage facilities was valued at $30.26 billion in 2021
California, Washington, and Florida are the 3 states with the highest cold storage volume
Why Is Cold Storage Becoming So Popular?
The cold storage market is expected to expand at a compound growth rate (CAGR) rate of 9.2% between 2022 and 2030.
But what’s causing the increase in popularity?
Here are 3 key factors:
Many consumers’ eating habits are changing.
For instance, more folks are avoiding processed, canned, and packaged foods and instead consuming freshly prepared kitted meals.
More consumers are buying kitted meals, driving up demand for cold storage
And these pre-prepared meals require careful temperature control for preservation – hence the need for more cold storage.
By 2026, projections show that 20 million more people will be living in the U.S.
And more people means more mouths to feed, more medicine to supply, and more goods demanded.
Thus, there’s more need for cold storage facilities to accommodate these demands.
There’s been a general increase in consumer spending due in part to the rise of E-commerce.
This includes spending on refrigerated products like food, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics.
Of course, the more of these items that are sold, the greater the need for cold storage
How Do Cold Storage Warehouses Work?Cold storage warehouses maintain cooler temperatures through a combination of insulation and HVAC cooling systems.
Insulation serves the same purpose for cold storage warehouses as it does for houses: It helps limit the transfer of heat between the inside and the outside.
On the other hand, cooling systems for cold storage warehouses are a bit more complex.
But the basic idea is that they use a combination of coolant, pipes, radiators, and fans to absorb and remove heat and replace it with cooler air.
You can watch the following video or to the sections below to read more about how a basic cold storage warehouse cooling system works:
If you think of a cold storage warehouse cooling system as a mechanical human body, the coolant (also called a “refrigerant”) is like the blood.
That’s because it’s made of liquid (typically anhydrous ammonia) and circulates throughout the system via a series of tubes, pipes, and components – much like blood does through veins, arteries, and organs.
This is the main component in a cold room cooling system.
If the coolant is the “blood,” the compressor is similar to the “heart” in that it helps move the coolant.
It does so by raising the coolant pressure and temperature through compression and then pumps the heated refrigerant into the condenser.
The condenser removes heat from the refrigerant and disperses it into the atmosphere using tubes, fans, and/or water spray.
In the process, the refrigerant changes state from a gas to a liquid and then flows into the receiver.
The receiver stores the high-pressure liquid coolant condensate it gets from the condenser.
Through this, the receiver allows the whole system to maintain pressure while also providing a buffer for handling increased loads, such as when more cool air is needed.
When needed, the receiver releases the refrigerant into an expansion valve.
The expansion valve helps regulate the pressure, temperature, and amount of refrigerant released into the next component – the separator.
The separator receives and accumulates refrigerant from the receiver.
Pumps outside the separator pull the refrigerant into another expansion valve, where the flow rate is adjusted before it enters the evaporator.
The pumps also help adjust the load placed on the evaporator, which is determined by the cooling needs in the warehouse.
The evaporator is what brings cold air into the space being cooled and causes the temperature to drop.
It does this by passing the cold refrigerant through a series of tubes while a fan blows air from the space across the tubes.
The cold refrigerant in the tubes absorbs the heat, and the air leaves the evaporator cold – thus chilling the room and the goods.
Once the coolant does its cooling job in the evaporator, the refrigerant makes its way back to the first component (the compressor) and the whole cooling process starts over again.
How Cold Is a Chilled Warehouse?Cold storage warehouse temperatures are broad but normally range from -30° to 70° F.
Warehouses that handle frozen goods can be as cold as -122.8° F (for ultra-low temperature pharmaceutical warehouses).
But the most common freezer temperature range is between -10 and -20° F.
Cold storage is a type of temperature-controlled warehouse that restricts temperatures to a certain specific range but does not control humidity
Climate-controlled warehouses restrict both temperature and humidity levels to certain specific ranges
How Many Types of Cold Storage Are There?There are 2 main types of cold storage:
Here’s a summary of each one’s characteristics:
Refrigerated cold storage facilities (sometimes called “refrigerated warehouses“) are designed for preserving the integrity and shelf life of products that don’t need to be frozen.
They are typically kept between 33° and 55° F and store products such as fruits and vegetables.
On the other hand, frozen cold storage facilities help preserve the integrity and safety of items that must be frozen.
Temperatures in these freezer storage facilities can be up to 32° F, making them ideal for storing products like meat, fish, and produce.
5 Cold Storage Warehouse Examples
Although there are 2 main types of cold storage warehouses, there’s still a lot of variation among them.
So let’s go over a few common cold storage warehouse examples.
The defining characteristic of private cold storage warehouses is that they’re owned by the same enterprise that uses or produces the goods stored in the facility.
In practice, they’re commonly found connected to the main manufacturing facility and receive the just-made via conveyor.
Once inside the cold storage facility, the products are held until they’re ready to be sent to retailers or directly to the end-users.
Of all types of cold storage warehouses, private ones are less common.
This is largely because of the expensive nature of building and running them, which involves complex design and engineering plus compliance with many regulations.
As a result, they’re reserved for large companies like Nestle and Kraft.
While more expensive, the main benefit of owning a private cold storage warehouse is the greater control and flexibility it provides over products and how they’re handled.
This can help producers maintain quality, find areas to reduce costs, and ultimately improve customer satisfaction by ensuring a superior product.
Public cold storage is a type of cold storage warehouse that’s usually owned and operated by 3rd-party logistics (3PL) companies.
Unlike private cold storage warehouses, public ones receive, store, and ship goods on behalf of client companies.
For example, a fresh flower distributor might pay a 3PL cold storage facility to receive their products, hold them in storage until orders are received, then load them onto delivery trucks.
In addition to basic warehousing storage, many public cold storage facilities also offer a variety of value-added services.
This can include things like assembling or kitting, placing inserts in packages, or providing expanded quality control.
Public cold storage is the most common type of cold storage warehouse in the United States.
And the reason for its popularity is that owning and running a cold storage facility is a massive, expensive, and complex undertaking.
Furthermore, handling logistics isn’t every company’s strong suit.
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Thus, those that recognize this also realize the value of partnering with a logistics specialist whose strong suit it is.
That way, each company can focus on other, more pressing concerns like product development, marketing, and sales.
A refrigerated container is the most basic and inexpensive cold storage option for storing small quantities of temperature-sensitive products.
They are essentially shipping containers equipped with diesel-electric or grid-electric cooling units that can maintain temperatures between -30° and 70° F.
Refrigerated containers are the simplest, most flexible type of cold storage
Also highly customizable, refrigerated containers can be outfitted with features like different floor types, indoor lighting, and remote temperature monitoring.
Furthermore, because of their relatively small size (most are between 10 and 40 feet long), they are highly mobile.
For example, they can be placed inside a warehouse, outside, or at dock level, as well as on a trailer chassis – whatever setup is needed to accommodate the user’s specific needs.
Also called “blast chillers,” “shock freezers,” or “flash freezers,” these are very cold freezers used to rapidly chill products before placing them in longer-term storage.
Blast freezers are often used at the intermediate stage between production and storage.
For example, they’re useful when warm goods like bakery items straight from a production line oven need to be chilled quickly before moving to a longer-term cold storage facility.
How does it work?
Blower fans are used to force chilled air over products, which can result in bringing the temperature down from 160° to 41° F in about 90 minutes.
This helps preserve the attributes like nutrients, texture, flavor, and shelf life while also reducing bacterial growth.
Moreover, it helps reduce the strain on conventional cold storage cooling systems, which are less efficient when trying to lower the temperature of very warm goods.
Ultra-low temperature (ULT) cold storage is designed for storing sensitive biological and research specimens at temperatures ranging from -4° to -122.8° F.
ULTs gained exposure during the COVID-19 pandemic as it became known that they were required for safely storing the vaccines.
Besides vaccines, they are used for storing items like medicines and blood and tissue samples.
Compared to other types of cold storage on this list, ultra-low temperature cold storage accounts for a much smaller portion of the entire cold storage industry.
Furthermore, ULTs tend to be smaller physically than conventional cold storage – usually 20,000 to 60,000 square feet versus 150,000 to 400,000 square feet for the latter.
They also function with the utmost precision to preserve highly-sensitive materials.
That includes using liquid nitrogen or carbon dioxide backup cooling systems if the primary cooling system fails.
In addition, many ULT facilities are equipped with robust monitoring systems like alarms, data logging, and remote temperature control to safeguard against system failures.
How to Choose a Cold Storage WarehouseThere are over 600 cold storage warehouses in the United States to choose from.
This makes it challenging to decide which is best for you.
So, let’s discuss the biggest factors in choosing a cold storage warehouse.
Location is critical when choosing a cold storage facility.
That means you should consider the warehouse’s proximity to both your production areas and your end-user base.
Ideally, the best cold storage facility is close to the production site and within reach of the drop-off or distribution points.
This creates fewer and shorter temperature deviations and helps reduce fuel consumption and carbon footprints.
In other words, how close is the warehouse to the modes of transportation you use to move your products?
Most cold goods are moved on refrigerated tractor-trailers (reefer trailers), which means the warehouse should be close to major highways.
But if you move your goods via rail lines or air, the warehouse should be close to those transportation facilities.
Preferably, there will be a short distance between the two to reduce delays, fuel consumption, and other associated costs.
Many cold goods have strict schedules and cannot sustain any form of delay in storage or transportation.
So you’ll want to ensure your chosen cold storage facility can handle incoming goods.
That ultimately means they can cope despite upticks in consumer demand, seasonal production, and holiday crunches.
Cold storage facilities primarily depend on electricity because it’s easily accessible, clean, fairly economical, and environmentally friendly.
But electricity can be unreliable.
And in the case of a power outage, this can translate to major financial losses – particularly for cold storage facilities where products are liable to spoil.
So before you settle on a facility, ask what kind of temperature control systems they have in place.
Also, see if they have backup power systems in place in case the electrical grid goes down.
Consider how the facility provider monitors the goods and their supporting technology.
This is very important considering the kind of high investment that goes into cold goods.
Some critical questions to ask are:
How do they monitor the temperatures of their goods?
Is the monitoring in real-time?
How are they alerted to problems?
What kind of security and surveillance capabilities do they have?
Is there remote monitoring?
Is there on-site 24/7 security tech and personnel?
Big cold storage facilities that handle large inventories should have robust inventory control systems in place to keep track of everything.
To ensure that’s the case with any facility you’re interested in working with, ask questions like:
How sophisticated is their inventory management software?
How much visibility does it provide?
Do they use automated systems to keep accurate inventory counts?
Can they integrate with your inventory software systems?
For example, do you need to integrate your enterprise resource planning software (ERP) with their warehouse management software (WMS)?
This can allow expanded visibility into the movements of products and prevent cross-contamination between products.
That way, both you and the warehouse operator know where each product is and can dedicate the resources when and where they’re needed to further process the products.
Two important things to consider about any warehouse – cold storage or otherwise – are their shipment and turnaround times.
For instance, how often do the facility’s shipments arrive on time?
The closer to 100%, the better because making shipments on time is critical for any cold storage facility.
You should also find out how quickly they load and unload trucks or rail cars and how often drivers are held up waiting to be unloaded or loaded.
After all, efficient cold storage facilities have minimal turnaround times for trucks or rail cars both arriving and leaving the facility.
When choosing a facility, part of due diligence is knowing the brand and its credibility.
And that includes the warehouse’s compliance with industry standards and government regulations.
You can do that by asking questions like:
How long have they been in operation?
Do they have an established track record with customer success stories?
Do they have food safety certifications from credible associations, such as Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) or the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)?
What are their Food Safety Audit (FSA) scores? If storing pharmaceuticals, do they follow General Manufacturing Processes (GMP)?
Are they members of professional associations, like the American Frozen Food Institute (AFFI) or the National Association State Department of Agriculture (NASDA)?
These credentials show that they’ve met industry standards and government regulations for the safe and effective handling of sensitive goods.
Many businesses are opting for turnkey warehousing solutions so they don’t have to bother with the hassle of actually handling and distributing their products.
If your business is one of them, you’ll want to consider what services a cold storage warehouse offers before you agree to contract with them.
For instance, do you need palletizing, kitting, labeling, shrinking, or wrapping and does the facility offer them?
And if so, what are the costs?
How Much Is a Cold Storage Warehouse?The cost per square foot for cold storage construction runs between $250 to $350.
This is about 3-times the cost ($80 to $100) of a conventional warehouse.
Thus, it’s not unusual for cold storage warehouses to cost tens of millions of dollars to build.
Why does it cost so much?
The cost hinges on several factors, including the building’s design and construction, internal equipment, software, labor costs, and maintenance.
For example, something as simple as high-speed, auto-closing doors (used to control air transfer between cold and ambient areas) can cost up to $25,000 apiece.
Moreover, converting a conventional ambient warehouse into a cold storage warehouse is often as costly as building a brand new cold storage facility.
This is why so many companies opt to outsource their cold storage needs to public (3PL) warehouses.
When it comes to the cost of actually storing goods, public cold storage warehouses or 3PLs often charge fixed or variable prices by the pallet.
While warehouses storage costs can vary widely, an example rate structure may be:
$20 to receive and ship a single pallet
$10 per month to store a single pallet
$1 to $10+ for value-added services, such as picking, shrink wrapping, or labeling
Working in a cold storage warehouse brings with it some difficulties that may not exist in conventional warehouses.
Let’s discuss some of the key ones.
Depending on the products being stored, there may be many regulations that the warehouse must handle to ensure product safety and integrity.
This makes running a cold storage warehouse much more complicated than ordinary warehouses that handle less sensitive items.
Public cold storage warehouses especially have more problems since they often handle various items with different requirements.
For example, the same facility may handle everything from produce and ice cream to flowers and cosmetics.
Maximizing storage density is as much a problem for cold storage warehouses as it is for conventional warehouses.
The question is: How can you store as many products as possible in your existing space?
One method is to expand the warehouse horizontally (i.e., increasing the square footage).
But this is often prohibitively expensive.
A more economical option is to expand vertically, allowing more goods to be stored in the same footprint.
Still, making the best use of space among different SKUs and turnover can be a difficult task for many cold storage warehouses.
Any delays or disruptions to operations can be catastrophic for items that require cold storage since it can result in massive product losses.
These operational disruptions can include:
A forklift truck breaking down
A missed shipment
Delays in loading or unloading semi-trailers or rail cars
Manufacturing equipment malfunctions
Refrigeration equipment breaking down
This makes it necessary to have contingency plans in place.
For example, a warehouse may keep spare forklift parts on hand so they can be rapidly deployed to fix a lift truck if it breaks down.
Other ways to guard against operational disruptions include keeping up on planned maintenance or implementing a preventative maintenance plan for equipment.
It can even include establishing and maintaining good relationships with logistics companies to quickly overcome any transportation delays or disruptions.
Every warehouse operator (or business with employees for that matter) knows that labor is expensive.
In fact, it can account for up to 70% of the total costs of warehouse operations.
And the ongoing labor shortage only makes things more difficult and expensive.
Plus, high turnover rates mean that warehouses are also spending money on training costs that they never gain back if a worker quits shortly after training.
On top of that, finding and retaining employees willing to work in cold temperatures for long periods makes labor even more expensive and difficult to source.
Cold storage warehouses have higher energy costs than ambient storage.
The average refrigerated warehouse uses 24.9 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per square foot each year, which is 4-times higher than conventional warehouses consume.
One reason for the higher energy costs is that many cold storage warehouses are more than 20 years old and built with less energy-efficient materials than modern facilities.
Another reason is because of the equipment involved, such as the cooling system, automatic doors, monitoring systems, and fire safety systems.
Each of these can draw lots of power, resulting in higher utility bills.
One more reason is the challenge of maintaining consistent temperatures.
This occurs especially when there’s lots of movement in and out of the warehouse – such as at the entry/exit points – and results in high energy consumption.
Moreover, cold storage warehouses consume lots of water – in some cases, 60,000 to 100,000 gallons per day.
And given that this water may also need to be treated and sanitized, this all adds to the operational costs of a cold storage warehouse.
Some people wonder, “what happens if you work in a freezer?”
The human responds to cold in 2 ways:
These body responses can cause a person to experience difficulties and complications, including:
General discomfort
Loss of concentration
Fatigue due to energy losses from the body attempting to warm itself
A loss in dexterity and difficulty manipulating objects
Hypothermia, if the body’s temperature drops below 95° F
Frostbite, which is the freezing of the skin or underlying tissues
Trench foot, which is damage to foot tissues caused by immersion in cold water
Moreover, these issues increase when a person is improperly dressed, wet, exhausted, or has pre-existing health conditions, and poor physical conditioning.
Other risks associated with working in cold storage include:
Slips, trips, and falls from the accumulation of frozen fluids caused by condensation
Impact injuries from equipment losing traction on slick surfaces
Poisoning from exposure to fumes from equipment fuel or the ammonia used in refrigerants
Using equipment in cold storage that isn’t properly guarded against the conditions can cause premature wear and failure.
For example, Toyota lift trucks can handle temperatures as low as 32° F without any modification.
But temperatures below that can result in problems.
Specifically, the transition from cold to ambient temperatures can cause condensation on the sensitive electronic components and wiring.
This can lead to rust, which can be extremely expensive to repair.
Also, batteries – whether for lift trucks or handheld scanning equipment – don’t usually perform well in the cold.
They tend to suffer from frozen electrolytes, lost capacity, and higher energy requirements for charging.
For example, every 15° to 20° F drop in temperature below 80° F can result in a battery losing 10% of its capacity.
This means an electric forklift operating in a -20° F warehouse can lose half of its battery capacity, resulting in much shorter run times and impaired productivity.
5 Tips for Working Safely in Cold StorageThere’s a lot that comes with working safely in a cold storage facility.
Here are some of the key tips for doing so.
OSHA is a great place to look for guidance on workplace safety issues because they’re the workplace safety watchdog.
Although OSHA doesn’t provide specific rules for working in the cold, they do nevertheless suggest several ways to protect workers in these environments, including:
Train workers to recognize the signs of cold stress and provide first aid
Provide engineering controls such as heaters that workers can use to warm up
Provide breaks and refreshments like warm beverages
Encourage proper dress, such as gloves, insulated and waterproof boots, a hat and hood, and knit masks to cover the face and mouth
Incrementally acclimate new or returning workers to the cold to increase their cold tolerance gradually
Wearing proper clothing for cold conditions should involve dressing in layers and ensuring the face, head, hands, and feet are adequately protected.
Your clothing should be at least 3 layers thick and composed of loose-fitting articles that provide an air barrier, wick body moisture, and prevent excessive sweating.
Specifically, cold-weather clothing should be layered as follows:
Wear boots that are designed for cold weather and allow the feet to breathe.
The boots should be waterproof or resistant and have an anti-slip sole.
Wear socks that are non-moisture-absorbing (that means no cotton), like polypropylene.
Also, they shouldn’t be too tight-fitting to reduce foot circulation.
Wear headwear and/or face masks like knitted hats or balaclavas to prevent heat loss from the head.
Gloves should be thermal while also enabling enough dexterity for using equipment like hand scanners and forklift controls.
You can also add hand warmers for a little heat-boosting action.
The more that automated equipment can take on tasks that require being in the cold, the less human workers need to.
And that helps reduce the risk of injury and illness that comes with the cold, while also boosting productivity (since machines can work faster than humans).
For example, automatic guided vehicles (AGVs) can autonomously transport or pick/place items in a cold storage facility.
Other automated technology solutions, such as RFID scanners, voice picking, and AS/RS systems, can also help reduce employee exposure while improving productivity.
A 10-minute break every hour is one rule of thumb to give the body resting time.
Workers can use this time to stay hydrated and fortified with nutritious foods to offset the body’s extra work to maintain itself in cold temperatures.
For example, drinking warm, sweetened fluids can help employees cope with the cold.
Cold storage-rated equipment has specially-guarded components that protect the electrical system from damage due to condensation.
For instance, cold storage forklifts have features such as stainless steel, fully-sealed components, cold weather oil, anti-slip platforms, and heated batteries.
You can also equip forklifts with enclosed cabs and heaters to protect workers in cold conditions.
Other cold storage equipment tips include:
Use equipment with oversized buttons that allow manipulation by gloved hands
Use larger batteries or assign multiple batteries to a piece of equipment to help offset cold-related performance issues
Switch to lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries for better cold performance, less maintenance, and faster charging
That’s it: Your complete guide to cold storage warehouses.
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