Smithfield Foods

The Smithfield Foods facility in Tar Heel, North Carolina is the largest pork processing facility in the world. They had been utilizing 3PL services to blast freeze their product but were looking for a way to streamline that process, so they could ship directly from the plant to the port. Smithfield was also considering a new location to handle their domestic SE distribution, so they partnered with Tippmann Group to design and build a solution for both of those challenges.

Smithfield was familiar with Tippmann Group, having recently worked together and completed another large-scale distribution facility in Indiana, so they knew the quality of work and were confident that Tippmann would be able to get the job done.

With more than 100 trucks per day of blast freezing needs, Tippmann Group’s QFR Zone® was the perfect solution to freeze Smithfield’s product more quickly and efficiently than ever. 152 QFR Zones® were installed in the facility, creating 3,648 pallet positions dedicated to freezing their product quickly, making it one of the largest blast freezing operations in the world.

The Tippmann and Smithfield teams came together and worked tirelessly throughout the multi-phased project, creating an effective flow of communication between construction, plant, and warehouse personnel.

This dedication enabled Tippmann Group to complete one of our largest and most complex construction jobs to date on time and on budget.

Facility Highlights:

• 500,000 square feet
  
• 152 QFR Zones®
• 3,648 freezing positions
• 1,061 LED light fixtures
• 3,200 tons of steel
• 57,540 cy of concrete
• 350,000 sf of IMP walls
• 6.8 miles of underground utility piping