History

Journey back in time to 1978 when Seafreeze Cold Storage was formed as a joint venture between two companies, Seafreeze (a cold storage warehouse company) and Sea Pro (a seafood processing company). The primary business in Seafreeze's early years was the processing, freezing, and storage of seafood, primarily salmon and halibut, from both Puget Sound and Alaskan waters. Full operations first started in July 1978 with one processing building adjacent to two cold storage warehouses and with a warehouse crew consisting of just one foreman and four forklift drivers. The Seafreeze facility was built upon land leased at the Port of Seattle's Terminal 115 and formerly occupied by Boeing and its Little Red Barn for its design and manufacturing facility on the Duwamish waterway.

Seafreeze's immediate success within the industry required additional capacity so a third cold storage warehouse was completed in 1979.

Following the collapse of the Alaskan king crab fishery in 1981, the independently operated Sea Pro processing business was absorbed by Seafreeze in 1982

In 1983, a group of investors, primarily from West Germany, formed Seafreeze Limited Partnership and purchased the assets of Seafreeze. This partnership was led by George Haywood, an "Officer of the British Empire" which is an honorary title which was conferred upon him as a result of his good work as a manager with international food conglomerate Cadbury Schweppes in West Africa. George was a true entrepreneur. Based upon the relatively low per capita consumption of seafood in the United States versus Europe, George could see the opportunity to increase the consumption of seafood in the United States by offering value added seafood products which would further utilize the assets of both Seafreeze's processing and cold storage operations.

Therefore, in 1983 in addition to the traditional seafood processing at Seafreeze of salmon, halibut, and king crab, Seafreeze added vacuum packaging, water jet portioning, and filleting equipment to produce value added seafood products. In fact, it was Seafreeze, working with an outside engineering firm who first developed and patented a machine that used a computer and a laser to "size" a salmon fillet and a 50,000 psi. water jet to cut the salmon fillet into exact weight portions.

Seafreeze added another 14,000 sq. ft. of value added processing space in 1986 by converting its second floor mezzanine into a modern processing space and installed two breading lines to produce breaded pollock products primarily on a custom processing basis. Seafreeze even processed for its own account. In fact, many of today's successful seafood processing companies first started producing products at Seafreeze on a custom processing basis until their volume grew to the point where they could justify operating their own facilites. These companies include Peter Pan Seafoods, Orca Bay Seafoods, Ocean Beauty, Arctic Alaska (now part of Trident Seafoods), and Odyssey Seafoods.

To accommodate the large volumes of pollock products coming from the North Pacific and to support Seafreeze's two shift value added pollock processing operations, a fourth cold storage warehouse was built and placed into operation in 1988.

George Haywood left Seafreeze in 1989 to become CEO of a local seafood processing firm. Succeeding George as President of Seafreeze was Herb Holley, who along with George, had been one of the five general partners of Seafreeze and who had been familiar with Seafreeze's operations since 1983.

As our breading customers outgrew Seafreeze and left to start their own operations, our investment in the breading business could no longer be justified. In 1991, Seafreeze discontinued its breading operations and the company was restructured to focus on its core competencies of cold storage and basic seafood processing. At the same time, realizing that the current large volumes of seafood available for cold storage would not continue forever, Seafreeze began its successful efforts to diversify into a wide variety of frozen food products of which seafood was still one important component.

In 1992, Seafreeze's strengths and strategic value were recognized and Seafreeze was purchased by Toyo Suisan Kaisha, Ltd., a major noodle and seafood processing company in Japan. Toyo Suisan also operates 15 cold storages in Japan and, in 2003, celebrated its 50 year anniversary. Toyo Suisan now has three U.S. subsidiaries which include Seafreeze, and Maruchan noodle processing plants in Richmond, Virginia and Newport Beach, California.

For the fourth time in 15 years, primarily as a result of its diversification into non-seafood products such as meat, dairy, and baked goods, Seafreeze had outgrown its warehouse space so a fifth cold storage warehouse was added in 1994. This latest expansion enabled Seafreeze to stabilize its cold storage business throughout the year while still being able to service the constantly changing needs of its seafood cold storage customers.

Upon Herb Holley's retirement in 1996, Frank Breen became the Vice President and General Manager at Seafreeze. Frank has been with Seafreeze since 1986 and before that, was involved in the food processing business as a manager both at Nalley's Fine Foods in Tacoma, Washington and at Hunt Wesson Foods in Fullerton, California.

Seafreeze recognized the need to always have a strong processing operation adjacent to its cold storage to both increase its cold storage business and to provide stability for its cold storage employment throughout the year. Therefore, starting in 1996, Seafreeze leased its vacant processing space upstairs to a major seafood processing company. This was followed in 2000, with the lease of additional downstairs processing space to a second seafood processing tenant. In March of 2003, Seafreeze discontinued all of its processing operations and leased its remaining processing space to another major seafood processing company.

Today, Seafreeze is the largest cold storage facility in Seattle with 7.0 million cubic feet of low temperature storage capacity. Our business has been successful based upon Seafreeze's hard earned reputation for superior customer service which has provided the foundation for long term business relationships with so many outstanding customers in the frozen food industry. We also pride ourselves on the fact that many of our Seafreeze employees have been with us for over 20 years. This level of experience and skill truly contributes to the high level of customer service which Seafreeze strives to achieve every day.

In July of 2003, Seafreeze celebrated its 25th year of operation. Looking forward, our goal is to continue to earn our customers business every day by always being our customer's first choice for cold storage warehousing services.