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The idea of ICE was conceived in early 1998. A local manufacturer of Mexican food called Delimex had grown out of not only its current manufacturing plant, but also its newly opened plant in Otay Mesa. They began a search to build a relationship with a Cold Storage Distribution Warehouse to house its growing needs for frozen storage. They spoke to many groups, including all the local owners of current Cold Storage warehouses in search of the right "marriage". The one that best fit was the talks with Hamann Construction, whom had not only built their current facility, but also owned the perfect
location: a 5 acre parcel right next door to their brand new production facility.
Once negotiations between Hamann and Delimex were in the final stages, Doug Gadker was hired on to be the General Manager of ICE by Hamann. A long time manager in the local Cold Storage Industry, as well as a trusted account manager who had handled the Delimex account for many years, it seemd to be a good fit. The original plan for ICE was to operate about 1,250,000 million cubic feet of freezer space, and leave room for future growth in a dry warehouse built as part of a 3,700,000 cubic foot facility.
The future came faster than expected, as a local strawberry processor approached ICE during construction, and asked ICE to dedicate most of the remaining half of the property to them for Blast freezing and storage of their products. To the credit of ICE's owners, Jeff and Gregg Hamann, they took the bold step of building out the entire 3,700,000 cubic feet with freezer and blast freezing, and in May of 1999 ICE hit the ground running.
After a successful first year in business disaster hit our local economy with the Southern California electricity crisis. Rates shot out of control and ICE was doing everything it could to keep competitive pricing while trying different options to stabilize their costs for power. Energy can range anywhere from 15% to 30% ICE's overhead, and it hurt profitability in its second year. But ICE stabilized the following year and the future again looked bright going into 2002. The growth had begun to take its toll on ICE and some decisions by management to take on more business than the company was prepared to handle cost ICE its potentially best year. However, it showed the potential for ICE and possible expansion in the future as ICE's management team implements procedures not to allow for the same mistakes to repeat themselves in the coming years.
This area is currently under construction.
Please check back soon.
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