Central Storage & Warehouse (CSW) has commissioned a new ultra-cold expansion at its Pleasant Prairie, Wis., facility, adding storage space maintained at −70°F — temperature territory critical for certain biologics, specialty ingredients, and next-generation frozen food formats that demand conditions far below conventional blast-freeze standards.
The Pleasant Prairie project marks the second expansion of CSW's ultra-cold footprint at that site. The company first built ultra-cold capacity there in 2016, then extended it in 2020. CSW partnered with Consolidated Construction Company and Summit Refrigeration to design and construct the latest addition.
Cold-Chain Context
Ultra-cold storage — generally defined as −60°F to −80°F — has moved from a niche pharmaceutical requirement to a growing foodservice and food-manufacturing consideration. The rollout of mRNA-based products during the early 2020s normalized −70°F logistics infrastructure across the upper Midwest, and third-party cold storage operators have since fielded increased inquiries from food and beverage manufacturers exploring ultra-cold preservation for high-value proteins, fermented cultures, and specialty frozen ingredients. For foodservice distributors and processors, access to reliable ultra-cold capacity in a dense Midwest logistics corridor — CSW's Pleasant Prairie campus sits in the Kenosha area, roughly equidistant between Chicago and Milwaukee — can reduce spoilage risk and extend shelf life for temperature-sensitive SKUs.
Operator Implications
For foodservice operators and their supply chain partners, third-party cold storage expansions of this kind signal growing confidence in differentiated temperature-tier demand. Rather than retrofitting standard freezer space, purpose-built ultra-cold vaults require specialized refrigeration engineering, tighter envelope construction, and dedicated mechanical redundancy — all factors that raise capital cost but also raise the barrier to entry for competitors. CSW's decision to invest in a third-generation build at the same site suggests sustained customer demand rather than speculative capacity addition.
The Midwest cold-chain corridor has seen steady infrastructure investment over the past several years as food and beverage manufacturers seek to shorten transit times between production and distribution hubs. Pleasant Prairie's location on the I-94 corridor positions CSW to serve both Chicago-area foodservice distribution centers and upper Midwest food processors without the drayage cost of routing through a major metro terminal.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
