The factory floor at National Frozen Foods is seen on Tuesday morning at their plant in Chehalis.
Lima beans are moved down conveyor belts into a trough before being packaged at National Frozen Foods in Chehalis on Tuesday morning.
Corn moves along a conveyor belt prior to being inspected and packaged at National Frozen Foods Tuesday morning in Chehalis.
Factory workers sort through chopped carrots at National Frozen Foods factory in south Chehalis on Tuesday morning.
Diced carrots run off a conveyor belt into a trough to be packaged at National Frozen Foods on Tuesday morning in Chehalis.
A machine dumps diced carrots into a box lined with a plastic bag which will be shipped out from National Frozen Foods' packaging facility in Chehalis.
Boxes filled with corn on the cob are seen being moved along a conveyor belt prior to be being shipped off from the National Frozen Foods packaging plant in Chehalis on Monday.
Few people think when they shop at a major corporate grocer like Walmart, Costco or Safeway that the food they are buying comes from somewhere near their own back yard, or as close as the Port of Chehalis.
National Frozen Foods locally processes more than 110 million pounds of vegetables annually and packages around 1.6 million pounds of food each day.
The company, which is the largest independant packer in the country, sells 200 different packaged blends of frozen corn, carrots and peas to major retailers, food suppliers and restaurant chains like Church’s Chicken, Food Service of America and Target.
“We do it better than anybody, I guarantee it,” said General Manager Pat Sauter, a Chehalis native who started cleaning screens at the plant 34 years ago.
During the harvest season, from July to October, the company brings in crops from more than 19,000 acres of Washington farmland, processes it and loads it into totes of 1,500 pounds of food. The time from harvest to tote, Sauter said, is only about four hours and the food contains no additives.
“Frozen food is better than fresh,” he said. “It’s as close to fresh as you’re going to get unless you picked it from your garden that day.”
Each tote is barcoded with USDA standards then packaged according to the specific needs of over 150 different customers including Walmart and Sysco, which each purchase around 60 million pounds of vegetables from National annually.
In fact, Sauter said, 90 percent of frozen vegetable products sold under Walmart’s Great Value label west of the Mississippi come from National. They also package brands like Swans, C&W and Market Pantry.
Additionally, the company stocks the corn for many major restaurant chains like Popeye’s, Applebee’s and KFC.
“You can bet when you go to Chilis’ restaurants, those are our cobs,” Sauter said. “It’s pretty much Chehalis product out there.”
In Chehalis the company can store 90 million pounds of frozen food with an additional 34 million pounds of storage in the Centralia location while it is waiting to be packaged and shipped. The cold storage warehouse is served by BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad.
National ships its products all over the world to places like Japan, China and Israel.
The company, which deunionized three years ago, employs 200 full-time workers year round and hires an additional 400 seasonally.
“Our season is pretty much controlled chaos,” Sauter said.
The company contracts with 200 Washington growers, many of which are second- or third-generation National farmers, and decides when they will plant and harvest based on a complicated system developed by studying weather and averages over the last 20 years.
“We’re in the driver’s seat. They grow it,” Sauter said. “We do this to make sure we get the quality we want.”
The Fenn family has been growing corn and peas for National at their farm in the Boistfort Valley for three generations.
“Our family has been growing for at least 60 years,” said Bobbi Fenn. “It’s funny when you think how many tons of food we’ve produced.”
The Chehalis plant, which has a capacity of 45 tons an hour, needs to control when crops are harvested to ensure they can efficiently process the incoming product.
“I wish there were more processors in western Washington,” said Dave Fenn. “It’d really help out the farmers.”
The 100-year-old company started as a cannery in Olympia and switched to freezing in the early 1930s.
Today, the Chehalis facility processes and freezes crop from about 100 acres of privately owned farmland a day.
“We are based on Mother Nature,” Sauter said. “You have to react to what God gives you.”
The National Frozen Foods Corporation, which has three other facilities in Washington and Oregon, leaves Sauter to run the Chehalis plant.
“It allows us to make decisions quickly and be proactive rather than reactive,” he said.
Because National has already contracted prices with its retailers and growers, the current drought in the Midwest will have little immediate effect on the business. However, Sauter said, it may drive prices up next spring.
While National cannot raise its price, Walmart and other retailers could. Sauter said he expects the government to step in although he wishes they would not.
“Ag is tough,” he said. “We’ll see where it shakes out.”
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Amy Nile: (360) 807-8235
