AGRO Merchants Group, Alpharetta, Ga., acquired three Iberia-based cold stores from Friopuerto, Spain. This transaction substantially expands AGRO's footprint and service capabilities within the Iberian region and reinforces the company's global leadership position in the import/export arena to support international trade. The three new facilities will be quickly transitioned to operate under the AGRO brand, while Friopuerto will retain its cold storage facilities in Mexico, Morocco and Uruguay. 

The largest of these three newly acquired facilities is a 10,000-square-meter cold store located in the Port of Valencia. This is said to be the only cold storage facility located directly at the port. The site boasts several chilled, frozen and dual-temperature rooms with a total capacity of 12,000 pallet spaces, along with on-site food inspection services and deep commodity expertise that includes meat, fish, fresh produce and other commodities. 

The two other cold stores are located in Portugal at the Ports of Sines and Leixões. Sines was built in 2016 primarily to focus on fresh produce trade flows. Leixões is a new site, constructed in 2017, currently handling a wide range of frozen, chilled and ambient products with a diverse client portfolio. This facility is close to AGRO's existing inland warehouse in Porto, which adds capacity and allows AGRO to better serve this growing import/export market. 

"AGRO's latest acquisition complements perfectly our existing operations throughout Iberia, and allows us to better support food trade flows through this important gateway to Europe," says Carlos Rodriguez, chief executive officer of AGRO Merchants Group. "Our capital investment strategy includes both strategic purchases such as today's announcement and last month's acquisition of Cool Pak Solutions in the Port of Long Beach, Calif., and expansions of existing facilities that are currently underway in both Urk, The Netherlands and New Jersey. AGRO will continue to opportunistically grow our network with the goal of enhancing our service offerings and capabilities for the global perishable food industry."