Country Life Special Section • Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Preferred Freezer to open Sept. 8
Gardening • CL2 Dairy • CL4 Community • CL6
Raspberry crop suffered in local heat Quality, price were good, but tonnage was seriously down, growers say By Calvin Bratt editor@lyndentribune.com
WHATCOM — Because of hot dry weather, the 2015 raspberry harvest started early and went fast. For the same reasons, yield was below normal. “The crop was less for our growers,” said
The 24 loading docks at Preferred Freezer’s new Lynden facility are all climate controlled. (Tim Newcomb/Lynden Tribune)
Canadian cranberries represent 80 percent of expected 2015 product By Tim Newcomb tim@lyndentribune.com
LYNDEN — Dan Shuler, the new general manager for Preferred Freezer’s Lynden facility, has started planning for cranberries aplenty. The state-of-the-art 292,000 square feet of cold storage space being completed off
West Main Street on newly created Curt Maberry Road will fill 80 percent with cranberries grown in Canada. Shuler will fill the remaining space with whatever fish and berries he can scrape together. But that is this season. The plan is to embrace the cranberries, but also provide a new home for local berries. “We hope to draw local berries,” he said. “We have a state-of-the-art facility and fair rates. There is no reason to not compete.” Shuler, who has worked in cold storage management locally for years, started at the Lynden facility, the New Jersey-based company’s 36th location, about two months ago. “It
is a great company that is people-minded,” he said. “They will take care of you.” And with that mindset, Shuler said, the new facility will have a customer-first approach with everything done, from a special waiting room and restroom facilities for the truck drivers to monthly barbecues on the new outdoor patio. Construction has moved at a furious pace since spring, as the 330,000-square-foot facility has taken shape with the company’s proprietary cold storage design. Inside there are four main cold storage areas, three of See Freezer on CL4
Even blueberries are now ending early in the hot dry harvest of 2015. (Calvin Bratt/Lynden Tribune)
Rolf Haugen, manager of the 50-member Northwest Berry Co-op south of Lynden. “VolSee Berries on CL5
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