Two years after its acquisition by CubeCold Europe, Northfreeze is very pleased to announce the development of a major new state-of-the-art cold storage facility in the port area of Ghent.

With design and planning fully completed, the actual construction of the ‘Grote Nest’ project in Ghent-Evergem will break ground in January 2024. The in-house project management team at CubeCold will fast-track the project and within one short year we will be welcoming our first customers to this energy and operationally innovative facility.

In anticipation of the growing demand for value-added-services the building will be equipped with a sizeable mezzanine, and sophisticated high volume blast freezing capability, ensuring a full service experience for our clients.

Amongst other strategic advantages,  Grote Nest is perfectly located for the import of fruit and vegetables, juices, meat, and the export of processed potato and other products. The new logistics hub will also be fully GDP compliant, completely equipped for the storage and handling of delicate pharmaceutical products.

Sustainability is a top priority for CubeCold Europe so the building has been specifically designed to minimise our carbon footprint. The site will generate 2.9M kWh through a proprietary solar field deployed on the roof, an advanced “cooling plant rest-heat recapture system” will heat the offices. Striving for environmental excellence does not stop here, we target a fully “BREEAM Excellent” certification.  

“CubeCold Europe sees excellent opportunities for the development of high-quality and dynamic logistics services. A broad and highly active spectrum of producers, exporters and importers with a high demand for intelligent logistics services makes the port of Ghent a strategic location for CubeCold. With unparalleled  multi-modal connections by road, water and rail we will dramatically expand our network, providing unsurpassed end-to-end solutions for our customers and logistic partners”, says Gerben Paauwe, CEO CubeCold Europe.

Northfreeze currently has 4 sites in Belgium, with locations in Evergem, Rieme, Bruges and Westerlo; our total capacity of more than 60,000 pallets creates a very meaningful critical mass. The full integration of Nortraffic into the group means that we own and operated a modern and sustainable fleet of temperature-conditioned trucks and trailers, this allows us to provide a seamless end to end service experience for our customers.

About CubeCold Europe

CubeCold Europe – formed by I Squared Capital – is a Pan-European a cold storage platform, focusing on acquiring and developing small to medium sized cold storage facilities across strategic areas. A special focus on ports and logistics hubs in Europe makes CubeCold one of the most important players in Europe. The platform has already assembled a portfolio of 180 thousand pallets across strategic assets in the Benelux, UK, and Italy region and is expanding rapidly.

We provide service excellence for customers near the ports of Antwerp, Bruges, Ghent, Moerdijk and Rotterdam. CubeCold Europe recently finalised its latest acquisition with Fridocks, a leading independent – cold storage and temperature-controlled transportation service provider in Italy.