Lane County is home to about 140 food and beverage manufacturers, and SnoTemp Cold Storage CEO Jason Lafferty says most of them have been a customer of his.

“We’ve helped a number of them grow along the way to become category leaders nationally,” he said. “We take the warehousing headache off of their hands.”

SnoTemp, based in Eugene, plans to break ground this summer on its first Central Oregon facility, a 40,000-square-foot building at 775 NE Hemlock Ave. in Redmond. SnoTemp has a few Central Oregon customers, including GoodLife Brewing Co., and Humm Kombucha, and hopes to add more.

Central Oregon has become a hotbed for food and beverage startups of all kinds. Economic Development for Central Oregon counts 75 companies participating in its food industry networking and education group. That count does not include companies involved in beer, wine or distilling.

Because Central Oregon isn’t served by an interstate, distribution is a big challenge, said Eric Healy, chief operating officer of The No-Bake Cookie Co. in Bend.

“It’s pretty difficult to get refrigerated and frozen trucks in and out of Central Oregon,” Healy said. “All of our products are frozen. Sometimes we hire regional trucking companies that can just take it over the mountains. We do whatever we have to.”

The No-Bake Cookie Co. has been using SnoTemp’s Eugene facility to distribute product from Interstate 5 to retailers in the Eastern United States, Healy said. He also uses SnoTemp for overflow storage, so he’s enthusiastic about the prospect of a facility coming to Redmond.

“We’re bursting at the seams here in Bend a bit,” Healy said.

Despite the company’s name, SnoTemp is more than frozen and refrigerated storage, Lafferty said. The company offers an array of order fulfillment and distribution services for refrigerated, frozen and dry goods, he said.

“Part of our plan in Redmond is to provide a significant amount of space for dry goods, whether that’s packaging and ingredients or finished goods,” Lafferty said.

SnoTemp’s Redmond building will be much smaller than its Willamette Valley operations, but it will have room for growth, Lafferty said. The company has 275,000 square feet of space in Eugene and 450,000 square feet in Albany.

Lafferty expects the Redmond facility to open in March 2019.

—Reporter: 541-617-7860, kmclaughlin@bendbulletin.com