More Pet Food in a Store Near You

Whether you have a canine or feline furry friend, Fromm Family Foods (Fromm) serves you as a nationwide producer of quality pet food. In order to meet current critter demand, Fromm required faster speeds for their ingredient receiving and an increase in their storage capacity at their Columbus, WI pet food processing facility. VAA provided civil and structural engineering; industrial architecture; and general arrangement designs and worked closely with the project contractor, McCormick Construction. While the general arrangement team coordinated each discipline and contributed advice and designs from project start to finish, the two largest components were civil and structural engineering.

Operating within a small site footprint, the civil team provided a design that maintained employee and semi-truck parking spaces; allowed access to the existing truck receiving bays; and created a path to the new truck receiving and loadout bay. Planning for the facility’s future expansion, the structural team designed a basement to store additional processing equipment when needed. The basement addition required blasting through bedrock to pour the mat foundation over 16’ below grade. A de-watering system was running constantly to keep the pit dry during construction, pumping out approximately 300 gallons per minute. In spite of the project challenges, the Columbus facility remained operational throughout the year-long design and construction process.

Aligning with Fromm’s original vision, this expansion reduced truck receiving time by more than half and added nearly four million pounds of storage to the facility.