Great West Petfood Holding Inc. (doing business as York Cold Storage I, LLC) is investing $5 million to expand their York facility and capacity, creating a minimum of 13 jobs. The expansion will allow York Cold Storage to provide the additional product to another Nebraska business, further strengthening Nebraska’s supply chain.
York Cold Storage is a refrigerated warehouse that stores frozen foods, bulk packages of beef, pork, chicken for pet food use, separates cartilage from meat for pharmaceutical use, and sells ice to various packinghouses and slaughter facilities.
York County Development Corporation’s Executive Director Lisa Hurley joined York Cold Storage I, LLC’s Plant Manager, Matt Spanjers in presenting the expansion project to the York City Council. Hurley and Spanjers asked the City of York to be the applicant to Nebraska Department of Economic Development (DED) for a $360,000 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) loan for assistance with one phase, which is the purchase of equipment. In addition to the equipment, in 2021, York Cold Storage will be adding roughly 2,200 sq. ft. to the existing facility and renovating a portion of the facility.
The York City Council approved requesting $367,000 in new CDBG funds. $180,000 will be a performance-based forgivable loan. Over the last six months, Hurley worked with SENDD and DED on the application and negotiations on making a portion of the loan forgivable. Now that the application for this phase (some of the equipment) is approved by the City Council, it will be submitted to DED for approval and the project will start after approval.