JOHNSON, Ark. — While some toil away in the heat of the summer sun, others are zipping up their winter coats for their work day.
Inside an old Johnson limestone mine sits Americold Logistics, a cold storage facility. The facility previously operated as Zero Mountain, which had turned the mine into a cold storage facility with ammonia refrigeration.
Tony Parrish has worked inside the 292,000-square-foot-cold cavern for 28 years. He said the cave was great for a cold storage facility because "inside the cave, it's 65 degrees year-round, whether it's 100 degrees outside or 35."
"If you've got glasses, they're going to fog up when you go outside," Parrish said. "If you've got a cold, you're going to keep a cold. If you don't like the warmth, the heat, you're fine, because there's more to do. Just go back from break early."
Brandon Early is a forklift operator who has worked at Americold for two years. He played hockey at the University of Arkansas in 2009 but still says it's as "cold as the Rockies baby."
"You go in and the forklift is black and you come out and the forklift is white, frosty, and steaming," Early said.
Ammonia refrigeration keeps temperatures at subzero levels, which explains the employees' attire of beanies and winter coats. Parrish describes the facility as the "Antarctic of Arkansas," with temperatures dropping as low as -35 degrees Fahrenheit. Parrish said the coldest rooms, their 6 blast cells, must drop to -35° F to take in freshly produced poultry.
Parrish said around 20% of the product is put on their racks which stay in place, but the rest is stacked in bulk stacks which means a changing layout. Parrish said their layout is also complicated because they kept most of the random layout from when people mined out the caves.
"If you hadn't been in here before, it's just like a labyrinth ... The floors always change. Everything changes the walls do because we're a bulk stack facility," Parrish said.
Parrish said they work with companies like Tyson, Butterball, Cargill, and Blue Buffalo.
"I've always called this the turkey cave, not the bat cave, but, you know, we're welcome for some chicken too," Parrish said.
Parrish said while things have changed since he first started with computers now helping with the layout and maintaining temperatures in the facility, the job has always been the same.
"We're helping feed the community, feed America, and, in some of the facilities, we're feeding the world," he said. "We do exports out of here. We're feeding Guatemala, Mexico, China. We're keeping food on the table."
In operations, Parrish said other facilities work just the same in cooling products. However, he said their facility has 10 feet of permafrost frozen into the limestone rocks, meaning if something went wrong it would keep cool longer.
Parrish said there was a room collapse in the '70s where one of the warmup rooms and a car next to it were crushed by rocks. Despite no one being hurt, he said the incident prompted some restructuring.
"Since then, we've got pins in all the walls [and] all the ceilings [that's] 15 feet thick going into the rock that ties everything together," Parish said. "We go through and we scale all the all of the rocks off, and everything that's frozen. It's got permafrost in it that actually holds it together like ice glue. There's not a chance of it happening again that way."
Parrish said there are parts of the cave system that aren't being used by Americold. Some are walled off or just avoided. He acknowledged rumors of "demonic worshippers hiding off in the caves and coming out," but says it's all hearsay.
"There's always the talk of the occult going on," Parish said jokingly. "When you would start, everyone would try to scare you[and] tell you to watch out for the shadows. If you're here late at night, there's somebody watching you from behind the pallets — 'Old Man Freezer,' you know, whoever it was. It was just always a fun little story to tell."
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