A Rich Heritage in Commercial Cold Storage & Warehousing
Lineage was founded through the combination of premier regional temperature-controlled warehousing companies with long histories and strong reputations. The Lineage name combines our unique heritage and expertise with the connectedness of cold chain logistics. It conveys our forward-looking momentum, as well as our core values of personal integrity and a commitment to enduring partnerships. Please click on the timeline above and the company logos below to learn more.
Seafreeze
Seafreeze Cold Storage was formed in 1978 as a joint venture between Seafreeze (a cold storage warehouse company) and Sea Pro (a seafood processing company) at a location in the south end of the Port of Seattle. In the late 70s and early 80s the facility was expanded twice and Sea Pro was consolidated with the cold storage business. In 1983, Seafreeze was acquired by a partnership including the Schnitzer family and led by George Haywood who expanded the facility twice more and expanded on-site solutions for 3rd party food processing companies. In 1992, Seafreeze was sold to Toyo Suisan Kaisha, a leading Japanese food conglomerate. Two years later, Seafreeze was expanded a 5th and final time to comprise over 7 million cubic feet in aggregate. By 2003, Seafreeze had discontinued its own food processing operations to focus on warehousing and supporting multiple on-site companies engaged in a range of seafood and food processing. In 2008, Bay Grove Capital acquired Seafreeze from Toyo Suisan Kaisha, which was the firm’s first deal in the warehousing and logistics space and the beginnings of Lineage. Appreciative of his support, Bay Grove continues to maintain close ties to Mr. Kiyoshi Fukagawa, Chairman Toyo Suisan Kaisha.
CityIce
CityIce’s predecessor company began operating in 1904 in Ballard, WA. In 1970, CityIce reopened as a public cold storage facility to serve the seafood industry and in 1972 it was purchased by Bill Manning. A year later, the company relocated to the Port of Seattle’s Terminal 91. The same year, Jack Rosling became a financial partner in the business and 9 years later, in 1982, he purchased 100% of the business. Upon his exit, Bill Manning founded Independent Packers a seafood processing company located on-site at CityIce, which has since grown into one of the premier 3rd party processors in the region. Starting in 1988, CityIce began expanding operations on Terminal 91 developing and redeveloping a number of cold storage and food processing facilities in the area culminating in 2004 with the completion of C-175, its dockside warehouse. In total, CityIce’s campus comprises over 4 million cubic feet of capacity and several specialized operations. Beginning around 1991, CityIce began developing the commercial factory trawler business at Terminal 91 whereby large vessels offload product directly into CityIce’s dockside facilities. Today, CityIce operates one of the few deep water locations on the West Coast offering this unique break bulk solution. In 2009, Jack Rosling sold CityIce to Bay Grove Capital and the business is a key piece of Lineage’s offering in the Pacific Northwest. Jack remains active in the business as a Lineage advisor.
Flint River Services
Flint River Services was founded in 1992 in Albany, Georgia by Lem Griffin and Zack Aultman as a cooler warehousing provider primarily for the peanut industry. Lem and Zack came from successful prior careers in the temperature-controlled warehousing and peanut industries, bringing with them a tremendous amount of experience and industry relationships. Flint River began with a single warehouse in Albany and continually expanded through construction of new custom-built facilities. By the end of 1997, the company was operating a total of six refrigerated warehouses when it began expanding into freezer facilities in order to serve new food products and expand its service offering. In 2000, the Company built its first facility outside the Albany area in Unadilla, Georgia; a 7 million cubic foot facility and its largest to that point. In 2007, FRS completed an even larger 8.2 million cubic foot facility in Savannah in an effort to meet the growing demand for export services from many of its top customers. In 2010, Lem and Zack sold Flint River to Bay Grove Capital. Today, the Flint River business is a core component of Lineage’s business in the Southeast. Lem and Zack remain active in the business as Lineage advisors.
Terminal Freezers
Terminal Freezers was founded in 1984 by Lowell Dayton and Gale Bernik, former executives of Termicold Corporation, a predecessor organization to AmeriCold Logistics. Shortly after its formation, David Dayton, Lowell's brother, joined the Company. Terminal initially built and operated a facility in Salem, OR. In 1985, after identifying the need for public refrigerated storage in southern California to handle the rapidly growing strawberry harvest, Terminal acquired an existing facility from the Union Ice Company in Oxnard, CA. Typifying the company's strategy, Terminal invested, improved and expanded the facility. Oxnard currently provides over 17 million cubic feet of refrigerated space, blast freezing and on-site processing capabilities. In 1989, Terminal leveraged its existing relationships and expertise and commenced operations in Watsonville, CA. In 1996, the company acquired another facility in Watsonville to expand for other customers. In 1995, Terminal entered San Antonio, TX, one of the largest and fastest growing cities in the United States by acquiring an existing cold storage facility and commencing construction of a new cold storage facility. In 1998, the company added a processing facility to the recently constructed warehouse and, in 2000 and 2011, the facilities were further expanded. In 2008, Terminal built a new facility in Brooks, OR to serve new and existing customers and in 2011, Terminal acquired a facility in Santa Maria, CA expanding further into the central valley. The Dayton family sold Terminal to Bay Grove Capital in 2011. Today, the Terminal business is a core component of Lineage’s business on the West Coast and Midwest. Lowell remains active in the business and is a board member of Lineage. His son, Tim Dayton, is Lineage’s President of West Operations.
Richmond Cold Storage
RCS was founded in 1907 and began operating a facility encompassing 1 million cubic feet in Richmond, VA. The company was purchased in 1949 by Frank Laughon Sr. and by the mid-sixties Frank “Pepper” Laughon, Jr. took over management of the company from his father. In 1976, RCS opened its second location and its first dedicated warehouse for a large central Virginia manufacturer. Between 1980 and 1995, RCS opened five new warehouses and expanded several facilities to meet the growing needs of its customers. In 1997, RCS opened a dedicated warehouse on the port at Norfolk International Terminal in Norfolk, Virginia to handle product for export and import. A year later, the company’s Chester facility received ISO-9001:2000 certification, the first certification of its kind in the public refrigerated warehousing industry. Between 1999 and 2008, RCS opened three more facilities and expanded three warehouses including several processing plant attached distribution centers. Michael McClendon, who had been with the company since 1995, was designated President of RCS in 2007. The company was acquired by Atlanta Equity from Pepper in 2009 and two years later Bay Grove Capital completed its own acquisition of the company making Richmond Cold a keystone of Lineage’s mid-Atlantic and Southeast operations. Today, Pepper remains active in the Lineage business as an advisor and Michael McClendon is Lineage’s President of East Operations.
Castle & Cooke Cold Storage
Previously owned by David H. Murdock and the Hendricksens, Castle & Cooke Cold Storage (CCCS) was formed in 2008 through the combination of Inland Cold Storage (ICS) and Madison Warehousing making it a national leader in warehousing logistics with facilities in California, the Midwest and East Coast. Founded in 1917, Madison Warehousing operates dry public storage facilities in Missouri, Illinois, Texas, and Maryland handling a wide array of consumer and industrial products. ICS was founded in 1979 by Bill Hendricksen with an initial development of a 47,250-square foot cold storage building in Riverside, CA. With immediate success, ICS opened a second freezer facility in Ontario, CA less than two years later and underwent expansions on a regular basis in Riverside, followed by additional facilities in Vernon, Fontana, and Rialto, CA. CCCS’ newest facility, a state-of-the-art distribution center, opened in Hunter Park, CA in 2011. ICS’s business focuses primarily on cold and refrigerated storage for food retailers and distributors and excels in dedicated facility management and providing complete logistics solutions for Fortune 500 companies. CCCS’s transportation group provides 3PL services and load consolidation nationwide. In June 2012, Lineage Logistics acquired Castle & Cooke Cold Storage. In July 2012, Lineage adopted CCCS’s Colton, CA corporate office as Lineage’s new headquarters. Today, Bill and Paul Hendricksen are Lineage’s CEO and President / COO, respectively.
Stanford Refrigerated Warehouses
For over three decades, Stanford Refrigerated Warehouses has been setting the standard in quality, location, and technology by providing exceptional service to customers in the Southeast. Led by owner and founder Brent Stanford, SRW has been a reliable cold chain logistics provider committed to the highest level of service one would expect from a family-owned and operated business. Growing up in the temperature-controlled warehouse business, Brent began his ventures with the purchase of a Fort Valley, Georgia warehouse in 1977. After 12 years of successful operations, he purchased another facility in Macon, Georgia, a strategic location in central Georgia. The facility provided cold storage services and soon expanded to provide blast freezing of poultry and vegetables as well as import / export capabilities. In 1999, Brent built a new facility in the Macon Airport Industrial Park, a Free Trade Zone, on a 20-acre site that became SRW’s primary location. With the business growing quickly, SRW doubled its footprint through an expansion in 2001. The facility doubled its storage capacity to 150,000 square feet of high-cube, fully racked warehouse and increased blast freezing capability to 300,000 lbs. daily in 2006 to meet customers’ needs. The operations have also expanded to feature rail service, USDA certifications with on-site inspections, Russian Federation export certifications, and import / export services including drayage. Today, Brent plays an integral role within Lineage’s southeast operations as an Advisor.
Seattle Cold Storage
Since its inception in 1969 as a single facility founded in Seattle, SCS has been one of the leading public refrigerated warehouse providers serving the Greater Puget Sound region. SCS’s facilities are strategically located near ports, including the Port of Tacoma and the Port of Seattle, and major interstates. SCS is known for its reliable service quality, freindly customer support, and breadth of service offerings that include temperature-controlled storage, import / export services, retail distribution, and transportation services. Coincidentally, the Tacoma location was originally constructed and owned by Bill Hendricksen, Lineage's current CEO, before it was sold to SCS.
Family Pedigree
The companies that form Lineage were successfully built by entrepreneurs and families over decades and generations.
Today, all these great companies are unified under a single management team with a shared vision of being the premier national supply chain logistics player.
Lineage’s heritage is ingrained in the core fundamentals of what it means to be a family-owned company: devoted people, pride of ownership, and a singular focus on doing the best for the customer. We remain dedicated to preserving these tenets as we grow.
Ongoing Chronicle
The history of Lineage will continue to evolve as we move into new markets and expand our service offering. We will focus on further strengthening our culture of success and core values regardless of scale or reach.
Many unique companies came to constitute Lineage today and others will join us to be part of the Lineage of the future. A critical part of this strategy has been and will continue to be to create an environment where our people thrive and enhance their opportunities to succeed.
Our depth of expertise includes former entrepreneurs as committed advisors and long-tenured employees. The bottom line is that our customers will continue to work with the people they have always relied on and benefit from a company with even broader resources to offer.
Strong Connections
Lineage has grown because of tight links with customers and within local communities. From our first facility in Richmond, Virginia in the early 1900s to our numerous current expansion projects, Lineage has taken a partnership approach to support our customers’ growth and vision.
As we’ve expanded, so has our family of employees and our ties to the local communities we serve. These connections will endure as the foundation of our company.
