Mastronardi Produce opens new Texas distribution center

Kingsville, Ontario-based Mastronardi Produce has announced the opening of a new 185,000-square-foot facility in Laredo, Texas near its current distribution center. 

Customized to the company’s needs, the warehouse was designed to efficiently provide pick and pack operations in support of Sunset-branded fruits and vegetables supplied to retailers and foodservice operators in the region, according to a news release.

The facility is located near the Pharr-Reynosa Bridge, according to the release, and employs many of the same staff from the former facility, according to the release.

The company has already begun using the new facility for cross-dock transfers and expects the facility to be fully operational within 90 days.
The move comes just after Mastronardi’s announcement that they will be opening a distribution center in British Columbia and is in line with their history of aggressive distribution and share growth, according to a news release.

“Laredo has been a very important location for us for many years, but we’ve outgrown our old facility,” Paul Mastronardi, president and CEO of Mastronardi Produce, said in the release. “With this new facility, we are significantly increasing our ability to efficiently service customers across the Southern region of the U.S. with the freshest, highest quality Sunset produce.”

The new facility, located in Laredo will feature an upgraded operating system for inventory tracking, customer fulfillment, receiving, shipping and tracing of produce from farms to consumers, according to the release. The facility will include multi-temp cooling zones that will allow for storage of the company’s newer commodities that require varied temperature control, such as berries and lettuce.

At triple the size of the old location, the facility will bring additional value-added packing for the company in the South, reducing transportation times and enabling more direct shipments of fresh Sunset produce to customers in that region, according to the release.
With 78 dock doors, the new facility will also significantly increase the speed and efficiency of cross-docking. The distribution center will be served by an network of farms which will benefit from the increased efficiencies obtained by the new facility, according to the release. The site also includes room for expansion in the future, according to the release.

“Today we operate 9 distribution centers totaling over one million square feet of cooled warehouse and distribution space and each operates in partnership with our customers to reduce food miles while increasing shelf life and in doing so, their profitability,” John Hemeon, chief operating officer at Mastronardi Produce, said in the release. “The expanded omnichannel facility allows us to increase our own efficiencies and distribute a wider range of Sunset branded fruits and vegetables with its multiple temperature zones. It also allows the company to better meet the increased customer demand and provide even greater value in the face of the changes in retail and foodservice brought on by the challenges of the pandemic and its aftermath”.