Smith Brothers Farms is a Northwest regional food supplier specializing in home delivered organic and gourmet foods and signature varieties of organic milk and dairy products.
While the company has been around for four generations, Smith Brothers Farms really took off during the COVID-19 pandemic when thousands of consumers were using grocery delivery services. From 2020 to 2023, it was recorded that weekly customer deliveries rose from 53,000 to 73,000, with the average order size growing along with it.
As Smith Brothers Farms outgrew its older facility, they needed to expand to a larger space - a perfect business case for using insulated metal panels
Customer growth and business demand led Smith Brothers Farms to outgrow its facility. The company opened its new facility in Federal Way, Washington, to better serve its customers and supply a broader range of essentials to the Pacific Northwest.
The new facility has nearly four times the amount of refrigerated space as its previous Kent warehouse. The property includes 20 acres equipped with a 40,000 square-foot warehouse for storage and dairy product distribution, as well as additional office space.
While a larger sized facility was priority, design was also a top focus. Architects NELSON Worldwide were tasked with designing a building that didn’t look like a typical cold storage facility, but instead a stylish, architectural looking building.
Insulated metal panels (IMPs) were used to achieve this aesthetic. Requiring only one installer – Fisher Construction Group – over 88,500 square-feet of Kingspan’s QuadCore® KS Shadowline panels in the color Ascot White, Driftwood and Redwood in Kynar coatings were used on the facility.
Kingspan’s IMPs elevated the design of the facility, giving it a more sleek, modern look. Precise IMP placement and attention to detail made for a satisfying challenge, producing a final product that was an impressive addition to the surrounding neighborhood.
In addition to meeting the aesthetic goals of Smith Brothers Farms, IMPs also played a vital role in the cold storage aspect of the facility. IMPs have exceptional thermal performance for use in a wide range of cold storage applications, including warehouse freezer boxes and food processing.
Available in a variety of module widths, Kingspan’s QuadCore® KS Shadowline panels are designed to offer the highest R-value for controlled environment/cold storage needs. Meeting USDA guidelines, Imperial White Siliconized Modified Polyester is the standard finish for KS Shadowline panels, making them ideal for food processing projects.
QuadCore® is Kingspan’s next generation of self-blended hybrid insulation core. The class-leading R-value of R-9.0 per inch for cold storage applications means QuadCore® is the most thermally efficient insulation core on the market. Kingspan’s QuadCore® Technology delivers R-values 11% better than high-quality PIR and up to 60% better than PUR.
Last year, Kingspan announced its QuadCore® Technology is now standard on all its panels used in cold storage applications.