Upstate Farms

These days, milk consumption is down, but that doesn’t stop Upstate Farms from coming

Trouble is, more products require more production capacity and more room for palletized product storage.  The Upstate Farms Cooperative, based in Buffalo, is the marketing arm for more than 450 dairy farms across Western New York.  When their Rochester milk processing plant was bursting at the seams, the company called on Aloi for help.

“We were basically faced with two options,” explained Upstate Farms’ Maintenance manager Terry Wihlen.  “We could either find additional storage space in our current facility through redesign of interior storage racks or we would be forced to build an addition.” Building just wasn’t feasible for the cost added Wihlen.

Aloi surveyed the plant and identified opportunities for adding storage in their refrigeration area, but there were many challenges. 

First, the new rack couldn’t obstruct the operation of an existing conveyor that brings product from the production line for palletizing. In addition, clearance for forklift trucks had to be maintained as they moved palletized products to the waiting delivery trucks.

"Aloi came up with an innovative solution that combined Selective Interlake Pallet Rack and Advanced Push Back carts with their low profile rating. They also custom designed a structure with extra reinforced uprights so that the first beam level was high enough to allow our guys to work underneath to access the conveyor and still meet our load requirements,” remarked Wihlen. “We liked the products they specified because of their strong roller system and weight-bearing capacity.”

The entire project-from start to finish-took just a fraction of time that would have been required for any construction project.  The result was a 30% increase in their storage capacity-some additional 66 pallets-for just 10% of the project cost of constructing and building expansion.  And, the company didn’t have to take any additional tax liability due to building expansion.

"This was our first project with Aloi, but I was very impressed by their workmanship and their level of service,” said Wihlen.  “They were very accommodating and willing to work around our production schedules so as not to cause us any downtime.”

"We would definitely recommend them and would absolutely call them again,” said Wihlen smiling.  With the way Upstate Farms is growing, Wihlen says the company is already talking about future plant expansion, so that call might come sooner rather than later.

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Aloi Material Handling, located in Rochester, NY – Your Upstate and Western New York source for manufacturing and warehouse solutions, pallet racking, shelving, mezzanines, carousels, modular offices, lift tables, overhead cranes and hoists, ergonomic workstations, and conveyors.