Bellingham Cold Storage leases warehouse space in Stanwood

STANWOOD — A Bellingham company that’s been in the refrigerated warehouse business for nearly 75 years has added a Snohomish County location.

Bellingham Cold Storage has leased and will manage a 190,000 square-foot warehouse in Stanwood owned by Twin City Foods, a Stanwood food processing company founded in 1943.

The new location, called BCS–Stanwood provides additional warehouse space for the expanding Bellingham company, while continuing to provide storage space for Twin City’s frozen vegetable products.

“It’s a very compatible partnership,” said Doug Thomas, president and CEO of Bellingham Cold Storage. “We are excited that the BCS–Stanwood facility will renew a partnership with Twin City Foods, a mutually positive family and business relationship that we have both enjoyed for decades.”

The Stanwood warehouse includes about 125,000 square-feet of food processing space, offices and break rooms. The remaining 65,000 square-feet consists of cold storage space, loading docks and freezer space.

Bellingham Cold Storage plans to renovate and lease a large portion of the warehouse to independent food processors, giving them onsite access to production and storage facilities, Thomas said.

It’s a strategy that’s worked at the company’s Bellingham facilities, which provide space for multiple on-site food processors.

The company hopes to make about 125,000 square feet of the facility available to up to four food processing companies, Thomas said.

The addition of several on-site food processing companies could generate up to 200 new jobs at the Stanwood location, Thomas said.

“We’re in the process of courting a few of those potential clients,” Thomas said. “We are giving tours of the facility to food processors located in the U.S. and companies in Canada that may be interested in doing business here.”

The cold storage company in recent years has outgrown its warehouse capacity in Bellingham to the point that it has occasionally had to fill its storage facilities beyond what is optimum, Thomas said.

The Stanwood warehouse provides much needed space, Thomas said.

“The additional space in Stanwood will give customers access to more space when they need it,” Thomas said.

The Snohomish County location offers strategic benefits to the long-term success of Bellingham Cold Storage, Thomas said.

It helps Seattle-area food producers that have been shipping their products to the company’s Bellingham warehouse for storage, and also gives them better access to the Ports of Seattle, Tacoma and Everett.

“They’ve been coming to Bellingham,” Thomas said. Now, they can cut travel time and costs and store product at the Stanwood location.

Bellingham Cold Storage got its start in 1946 with a single warehouse on the shores of Bellingham Bay.

During the company’s seven-plus decades in business, it has experienced “tremendous growth at its two warehouse campuses in Bellingham,” according to a company statement.

The Bellingham location also accommodates deep-water marine vessels, providing farmers and local food producers with access to Alaska and international markets, the company said.

Each year, Bellingham Cold Storage helps companies store and transport more than 600 million pounds of seafood, berries and other products.

Expanding into new service areas has been a focus of the cold storage company since the Joshua Green Corporation, a Seattle private investment firm, purchased a majority stake in the Bellingham company in 2018, CEO Thomas said.

“We are the largest port-side storage company on the West Coast,” said Thomas. “We’ve been slowly and quietly growing over time and plan to continue to grow strategically.”

Janice Podsada; jpodsada@heraldnet.com; 425-339-3097; Twitter: JanicePods