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Chicago's cold chain industry plays crucial role in holiday feasts

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Published  November 26, 2024 5:05pm CST
Chicago
FOX 32 Chicago

Chicago's cold chain industry plays crucial role in holiday feasts

One of the biggest cold storage companies in the world is in Chicago, and because it's Thanksgiving week, the Lineage warehouse is humming with activity.

The Brief

    • The cold chain industry, a network of storage and transportation systems, is essential for maintaining food quality and safety. Without it, many of the foods we enjoy, especially perishable items, would not be available.
    • Lineage, a prominent cold storage company based in Chicago, plays a significant role in the food supply chain. Its massive warehouses store and distribute a vast amount of food, including Thanksgiving staples like turkeys, pies, and cranberries.
    • The employees working in cold storage facilities, such as Lineage's warehouses, are vital to the food system. They ensure that food is stored and transported properly, making a significant contribution to the availability of fresh produce and other perishable items.

CHICAGO - You've probably never heard of the cold chain industry, but without it, your Thanksgiving dinner plate would be pretty empty.

One of the biggest cold storage companies in the world is based in Chicago, and this Thanksgiving week, its warehouse was humming with activity.

Inside Lineage's 170,000-square-foot facility in Pilsen — the size of three football fields — much of the food you eat is stored and then sent to stores and restaurants. It's part of what's called the cold chain industry.

"The cold chain is a network of cold storage warehouses, trucks, trains, anything that transports and keeps cold food," said Lineage Sales Manager James Rayhill.

And 30% of all food sold in Chicago goes through this Lineage warehouse — a lot of it this week.

"Besides turkeys, we also do pies, yams, stuffing, cranberry sauce," Rayhill said. "Anything you can think of for Thanksgiving, we help put that on the table."

Food arrives on trucks from farmers and manufacturers and is stored in massive pallets, either frozen at -10 degrees or chilled at 34 degrees, before being trucked back out to stores and restaurants.

This year alone, Lineage will receive, store, and transport 64 million pounds of everyone's favorite holiday bird.

"Here's where we have our turkeys staged," Rayhill said during a tour. "They're getting ready to ship out. We want to get these out before Thanksgiving, obviously. We stage them on the dock here, which is about 34 degrees. It only gets staged here for about an hour or two because we want to maintain product integrity once we get it out of the freezer."

About 80 people work at the Lineage warehouse in Chicago, which is the company's headquarters. The company employs 26,000 people worldwide.

They're considered essential employees in the nation's food system and worthy of a little thanks this Thanksgiving. 

"When you're sitting down at your Thanksgiving dinner and you're looking at your turkey, make sure to thank a warehouse worker for handling that food and a truck driver for getting it to the stores," Rayhill said.

The Source

  • Fox 32's Dane Placko went on a tour of one of the biggest cold storage companies in the world, based in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood.