"We never shut down," Dan DiDonato, vice president of sales for Preferred Freezer Services, Chatham, New Jersey, said the two days after Hurricane Sandy blacked out most of the state.
The storm brought torrential rains that caused flooding, and high winds brought down trees and utility poles, cutting off electricity for millions, including Preferred Freezer's seven distribution centers at and around its headquarters.
Preferred Freezer has distribution centers in 29 different locations nationwide, but its corporate headquarters is about a 20-minute drive west of Newark, New Jersey. Most of that area was staring down the barrel of the late-season hurricane that swept ashore Tuesday.
But independent generators meant the company didn't lose any product, and they have weathered the storm so well, DiDonato told Seafood Source, and other distribution companies have even been calling Preferred Freezer to ask if they could use their space to store product temporarily.
"They're trying to salvage their goods," DiDonato said. Calls for help from other distributors only started coming in Wednesday morning, so its impossible to say just how much product Preferred Freezer will take on, DiDonato said, but the company has received "hundreds" of such inquiries so far, just in the first few hours of Wednesday morning.
