May 4, 2021   SOURCE: BusinessWire

Vertical Cold Storage Launches Customer-Centric Business Model to Drive Performance and Eliminate Waste

Temperature-controlled storage has become a commodity to many companies in the cold chain industry, leading to deteriorating service levels, increased waste and reduced supply chain efficiency. Vertical Cold Storage, led by former executives from Cloverleaf Cold Storage and backed by real estate asset manager Platform Ventures, is set to disrupt the industry by focusing on servicing the customer, deploying the latest automation and technology and offering customer-specific logistics solutions.

“We bring a reputation for service and dedication to making our customers’ businesses as strong as possible. At Vertical Cold Storage we will build on that focus and leverage technology and systems integration to ensure our partners can deliver exactly what they want, when they want and where they want it with optimal efficiency,” said Curt Mastbergen, president of Vertical Cold Storage and former president of Cloverleaf.

Vertical Cold Storage is building initial cold storage facilities in Nebraska and Kansas, with others to be announced shortly. The company is also pursuing an acquisition strategy in several markets. “We will grow with our customers, where and how they need us to grow,” said Mastbergen.

The key features of Vertical Cold facilities include frozen, refrigerated and dry storage, blast freezing, exports, case picking, rail transloading, simple EDI setup, real time inventory access, standard processes across all locations and value-added reporting capabilities. Automation for the new facilities is being designed and implemented by an industry leader focused on increasing inventory availability, efficiency and throughput performance.

“At Vertical Cold, we are starting with a clean slate so our facilities will have automation that is the most reliable and productive in the industry, deploy the safest and most cost-effective refrigeration systems and use the latest green best practices. We will also train our teams to drive performance at every level of the supply chain. On the technology side, we will turn data from all parts of the organization into decision-quality information for our customers,” said Ken Smith, senior vice president of Vertical Cold Storage and former vice president of Operations for Cloverleaf.

Platform Ventures, the financial backers of Vertical Cold, has a history of making a wide range of real estate investments, from office space and hospitality to residential.

“Cold storage is one of the most exciting sectors in commercial real estate today and the pandemic has only served to intensify its growth. We were already very interested in the business pre-COVID, but needed the operational experience to create a business model that reduces labor costs through automation and improves performance through decision-making technology. We found that expertise with the Vertical Cold leadership team, and are now on a journey to build a continent-wide network of customer-focused operations,” said Ryan Anderson, co-president & co-founder of Platform Ventures.

About Vertical Cold Storage

Vertical Cold Storage is a South Dakota based full-service solution provider that builds, develops and operates temperature-controlled facilities throughout the United States. Vertical Cold emphasizes customer care and satisfaction for supply chain professionals while deploying the industry’s most up-to-date technology and automation.

More information is available at verticalcold.com.

About Platform Ventures

Platform Ventures, through certain asset management subsidiaries, manages and invests in real estate, real estate-related assets, real estate technologies and real estate-focused companies located throughout the United States. Platform’s experienced team seeks to add value to client portfolios by applying its knowledge of the long-term cycles and macro-economic trends that shape the real estate market in order to create price-to-value dislocations. Platform Investments, LLC, which is owned by Platform Ventures, manages several investment vehicles that consist of institutional investors and high net worth investors. Platform Investments has invested in 37 states with approximately $1.7 billion of assets under management as of June 30, 2020.1

Visit www.platformv.com for more information.

  1. This includes assets managed by our affiliates who are not registered investment advisers and this amount does not represent Regulatory Assets Under Management as defined by the SEC. SEC registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training.