What Is Americold's Budget Structure

Management interview

Future growth is the key essential reason for many companies, learning and meeting the company’s short-term and long-term financial goals is key. Americold is no different; Americold Logistics is a large company that has more than 165 locations in six countries. Americold is the global leader in temperature controlled warehousing and logistics to the food industry. Americold is the top in its class, catering for many food industries, Americold hauls nearly 95,000 truckloads of freight annually. On November 7, 2016, I took a deeper look into Americold Logistics management team and their financial structure, by interviewing Americold East coast operations manager, Office manager, and their General management. Prior to

While the Americold team was busy, I was able to sit-in with each manger, to view their reports and listen in to their daily phone conference, which gave me great insight. Brian Foster is Americold Central region office manager, I asked Brian for a rundown of the company’s budget process. Brian informed me that the budgeting is all based on the budget outline that is received from their customers which are McCain, ConAgra, and Aldi’s. Once they receive an outline for the upcoming new projects which includes expected inbound loads, expected outbound loads, special projects like relabeling or repacking of pallets and the shelf life of the product then Americold can start to work on their budget. Secondly, I asked Brian how does the company determines if there is a need to borrow money from outside sources. He stated that Americold is a privately owned company, which is owed by Yucaipa companies, LLC therefore Americold does not have any investors, or bond holders. In addition Americold does have hopes of one day becoming a public company and has been undergoing steps to make themselves more marketable so that they can becoming a public company. And lastly, I asked Brian, what are the key drivers of profitability? Brian said that knowing the company’s goals is key

Dan has been with the company for 9 years working his way up from a LTO to a third shift supervisor to now becoming the central operations manager. I asked Dan a series of question the first question was to see how right Americold forecast has been for his site. He stated that within the last 2 years Americold forecast has been off. He said the reason Americold central region has recently took on a new product line which caused for new direct labor he went from having 46 direct workers, to now having 97 direct workers, and from being open only 6 days a week to now operating 24/7. He said he has high hopes that in 2017 Americold will be able to drag themselves out of the red and into the green. Next I asked if Americold was working on any new projects for the upcoming 2017 year. Dan, informed me that the new 2016 Mccain restaurant line has their hands pretty tied up so there are no new projects in the making as of today. Altogether, the company is only focusing on making sure their customers are happy and satisfied with their work while working on new roadmaps to improve overall growth. And lastly I asked Dan how did he feel about his position and if his child or children where to follow in his foot step how would he feel about their discussion. Dan, said that he is blessed to be where he is today. Dan informed me that there isn’t a lot of people in his position that does not have a college degree so there are