Aerial view of green harvest fields at golden hour

FORGE

Field to Frozen in Under Four Hours

IQF Processing · Private Label · Co-Pack · Cold Chain

Scroll to trace the journey

The Journey

Six Stages.
Zero Shortcuts.

Every product that leaves our dock has passed through the same uncompromising sequence — from contracted soil to sealed carton. Trace it below.

01Sourcing

Contracted at the Root

Every harvest begins with a multi-year grower contract. Our agronomists walk fields 90 days before harvest, locking Brix levels, moisture content, and pick windows to within 6-hour tolerances. No spot-market purchasing — ever.

340+
farms
Contracted growers
6-hr
window
Pick-to-plant tolerance
14
states
Growing regions
Aerial view of contracted harvest fields at golden hour with crop rows stretching to horizon

Stage 01Sourcing

02Washing

Triple-Stage Sanitation

Incoming loads hit a three-stage flume wash — pre-rinse, ozone-treated soak, final potable rinse — within 20 minutes of dock arrival. Pathogen testing at every stage. No product advances until ATP swab scores clear 10 RLU.

<10
RLU
ATP swab threshold
3-stage
wash
Ozone + potable rinse
20 min
max
Dock-to-wash cycle
Industrial food washing line with water jets cleaning fresh vegetables on stainless steel conveyor

Stage 02Washing

03Processing

Precision at 180,000 lbs/day

Six processing lines run in parallel — slicing, dicing, blanching, portioning. Each line is dedicated to a single product category to eliminate cross-contamination risk. Vision-inspection cameras reject off-spec pieces at 400 frames per second.

180K
lbs/day
Peak throughput
6
lines
Dedicated category lanes
400fps
vision
Inspection camera rate
Stainless steel food processing conveyor line with sorting and inspection equipment under halogen lighting

Stage 03Processing

04Flash Freezing

Minus Forty. Every Time.

Product enters the blast tunnel within 90 minutes of processing. Cryogenic IQF tunnels drop core temperature to −40°F in under 8 minutes — locking cellular structure, color, and flavor before ice crystals can form. This is the four-hour promise.

−40°F
core temp
Blast tunnel target
<8 min
freeze
Time to core temp
90 min
max
Process-to-tunnel
Industrial blast freezer tunnel interior with conveyor belt and blue-white halogen lighting and frost vapor

Stage 04Flash Freezing

05Packaging

Your Label. Our Precision.

Robotic pick-and-place fills retail bags, club packs, and food-service cases to ±0.5% weight tolerance. Private-label artwork is pre-loaded for each SKU. A single changeover takes under 12 minutes — critical for multi-SKU runs.

±0.5%
weight
Fill tolerance
<12 min
changeover
SKU-to-SKU time
3 formats
pack types
Retail / Club / FS
Robotic arm sealing frozen food packaging cartons on automated production line

Stage 05Packaging

06Distribution

Three Time Zones. One Temperature.

Two million square feet of −10°F blast-hold storage. Dedicated dock lanes for LTL, FTL, and intermodal. EDI integration with all major 3PL networks. Your product leaves our dock with a continuous cold-chain record — timestamped to the pallet.

2M sqft
storage
Blast-hold capacity
−10°F
hold temp
Storage standard
3 TZ
coverage
Distribution reach
Frozen food distribution warehouse interior with refrigerated storage racks and forklift operations

Stage 06Distribution

Operational Scale

The Numbers
Don't Lie.

Third-party audited. Publicly verifiable. These are the operational realities behind every co-pack proposal we send.

<0 hrs
Field-to-Frozen

Maximum time from harvest to IQF blast tunnel — the core of our quality lock

0
lbs/day Peak

6 dedicated processing lines

99.4%
GFSI Audit Score

SQF Edition 9 — last independent audit

−40°F
Blast Tunnel

All 12 IQF tunnels

2M sqft
Cold Storage

Blast-hold −10°F, 24/7

340+
Contracted Growers

Across 14 growing states

<12 min
SKU Changeover

Multi-SKU private-label runs

Certifications & Compliance

SQFLevel 3
GFSICertified
USDAInspected
FDARegistered
FSMACompliant
OrganicNOP Certified

Seen enough to
start the conversation?

Our co-pack team responds within one business day. Share your volume estimate and product category — we'll come back with a preliminary capacity window and pricing range.

Request a Co-Pack ProposalDownload Capabilities Deck

No commitment required. Proposal delivered in 3–5 business days.

Partner Voices

The Operators
Who Depend on Us.

Grocery · Private Label
0.4%
Shrink rate (down from 3.2%)
"We moved our private-label frozen vegetable line to Forge 18 months ago. Our shrink rate dropped from 3.2% to 0.4%, and we've had zero FSMA holds. That's the kind of operational discipline that protects a category manager's career."
Patricia Okonkwo, VP Category Management at Midwest Regional Grocery Chain, professional headshot
Patricia Okonkwo
VP Category Management, Frozen Foods
Midwest Regional Grocery Chain
QSR · Proteins
±0.3 oz
Weight tolerance — 1,400 locations
"We spec protein portions for 1,400 QSR locations. Forge hits our ±0.3 oz weight tolerance on every pallet — not most pallets, every pallet. One supplier doing that. It's them."
Marcus Delgado, Director of Supply Chain at National QSR Operator, professional headshot
Marcus Delgado
Director of Supply Chain
National QSR Operator
Distribution · Cold Chain
<2 min
Audit response time
"Cold-chain gaps are a distributor's nightmare. Forge's continuous temperature logging with pallet-level timestamps means I can close any audit question in under two minutes. That's a competitive moat for my customers."
Jennifer Harrington, SVP Procurement at Tri-State Food Service Distributors, professional headshot
Jennifer Harrington
SVP Procurement
Tri-State Food Service Distributors
22
Years in Operation
87
Active Co-Pack Partners
1,400+
SKUs Produced Annually
98.7%
On-Time Delivery Rate

Start the Conversation

Ready to Lock In
Your Volume?

Share your requirements below. Our co-pack team will respond within one business day with a preliminary capacity window and pricing range — no commitment required.

Request a Co-Pack Proposal

For national accounts, QSR operators, and food-service distributors.

Proposal delivered within 3–5 business days. No commitment required.

Download Our Capabilities Deck

Not ready to talk volume yet? Get the full operational overview — certifications, capacity specs, product categories, and case studies.

Forge Capabilities Deck 2026
PDF · 24 pages · Updated Feb 2026
  • Full facility specs & floor plan
  • GFSI / SQF audit documentation summary
  • Private-label case studies (3 categories)
  • Capacity windows & lead times by season
  • Cold-chain traceability overview

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