Business has been so good for one Charlottetown shipping company that it has decided to build in a new, much larger location.
Seafood Express, which has been in the Keith family for 32 years, expects to break ground next week on its new home on the corner of Malpeque Road and Sherwood Road.
Right now, it occupies a footprint of just under three acres in the West Royalty Industrial Park. It is building a two-storey, state-of-the-art structure that will measure more than 13,000 square feet on a footprint of more than four acres with room to grow from there.
“We need the space; we’re growing,’’ said Andy Keith, vice-president of Seafood Express.
The new building won’t just contain office space and bays for its fleet of trucks. It will also offer its employees a fitness centre that will be open around the clock.
“It’s going to have state-of-the-art equipment to enable people to do their job better and more efficiently and more safely. I really think it’s going to boost (morale), not that morale is low, because it’s not.’’
Seafood Express was started 32 years ago by Keith’s father, Bill, who now serves as president. Bill started with a fleet of about a dozen trucks and has watched it grow to the 65 the company has today.
The current location was an old warehouse renovated into office space, with two bays in the back where the company conducts its own maintenance.
“Quite simply, we’ve outgrown out location,’’ Andy Keith said.
While they hope to break ground on the new facility next week, the hope is to move in by next winter.
The company uses its 65 trucks and 120 refrigerated trailers to transport products that need to be temperature-controlled as far south as Florida and as far west as California.
“At one point, it was all seafood, hence the name Seafood Express, and over the years we’ve branched out.’’
Their 53-foot trailers only haul full loads. Seafood Express also has a container division that travels between Charlottetown and the ports in Halifax, but it’s all temperature controlled as well.
“We’re all long-haul freights, so we haul across the border down to the U.S. and we mainly do the triangle, so it’s down the eastern seaboard and, depending on the time of year, it can go down as far as Florida and go back to the Toronto, Montreal area and then back east.’’
Keith said the intent is once the new building is complete it will appear like the cream of the crop as people drive by.
Seafood Express employs an office staff of about 30 people with an additional 70 drivers.
In summary
- Seafood Express is moving from a location that occupies just under three acres to one that has a footprint of just over four acres
- Construction is expected to begin next week at the corner of Malpeque Road and Sherwood Road
- The project is expected to be completed by next winter
