CALGARY, Alberta — Canadian Pacific Kansas City’s intermodal reefer container business got a boost today with the announcement that partner Americold Realty Trust will build a cold storage facility at the Port of Saint John, New Brunswick.
“Developing a state-of-the-art facility in Port Saint John marks an exciting step forward for Americold as the company expands into a strategically compelling geography serving high-volume international routes, providing unparalleled opportunities for integration with our premier partners in DP World and CPKC,” Americold CEO George Chappelle said in a statement. “Port Saint John has been the beneficiary of significant investments in recent years from both DP World and CPKC, and the infrastructure they have built has attracted major global shipping lines to this location.”
The $55.5 million (U.S.) facility — Americold’s first import-export operation — will handle temperature-controlled food products between Canada and points in Europe, South America, and the Asian-Pacific region.
The first Americold facility on CPKC is currently under construction at the railway’s intermodal terminal in Kansas City, Mo. It is scheduled to open this year and will handle southbound moves of Midwestern beef and pork to Mexico and northbound moves of Mexican-grown produce and other food items to the Midwest and Canada.
“We are excited to build on our successful strategic collaboration with Americold and DP World with this new facility in Port Saint John as we build a unique North American cold chain,” CPKC CEO Keith Creel said in a statement. “Our growing collaboration with Americold, which started in Kansas City and is developing in both Canada and Mexico, continues to bring new supply chain solutions to the market for our customers shipping a range of food and other products across Canada, the United State,s and Mexico using CPKC’s fleet of refrigerated containers. Our strategic purchase of the Central, Maine & Quebec Railway and our operational success working with JD Irving’s NBM Railways has extended our reach to Port Saint John and put another value-creating destination on the CPKC map.”
