Cold Storage Bringing people food that is healthy and great value for money

As the COO of Norish Ltd and Managing Director of Kevin Hancock Ltd, Kevin Hancock is passionate about cold storage and the role that frozen food plays in the global supply chain.

Over the course of my career, I gained much experience and I have great passion for the temperature-controlled food supply chain. As the world is now seen as a ‘Global Village’, the global supply chain is paramount to many of the food items we all enjoy and take for granted. From initially working with some large businesses in the temperature-controlled warehousing and logistics sector I ended up owning and also creating my own businesses focusing on “What does the client require?”   

Adding value

I set up Kevin Hancock Ltd with a real focus on customer service. As such, we offer added value to customers throughout the whole process. At the core of this is blast freezing and up-tempering so that we deliver the food to the clients at the temperature they require ‘just in time’. Now recognised as market leaders in up-tempering using the latest technologies of continuous Microwave and Rapid Air, we can take products from -18°C to -2°C in 3 minutes. Couple this to the other services we provide such as blast freezing, metal detecting, co packing, container loading and unloading, and our own distribution fleet, we are able to offer our clients the great flexibility of ‘just in time.’ This considerably reduces both food and production time wastage, which ultimately results in cost savings.   

Cold storage benefits everyone

Frozen food is every bit as healthy as fresh food, and it offers great value for money which is certainly top of everyone’s minds as the cost of living is hitting all-time highs. Covid and Brexit have put pressure on the supply chain, and that is putting up prices. All our services are designed to provide the flexibility that leads to less wastage across the supply chain and reduces those cost pressures. That will help people in this inflationary period and more and more of them will turn to frozen food.

New family, new opportunities

Cold storage is a great business to be in right now, especially for us. We became part of the Thermotraffic Group and Nichirei family in 2022. They saw in Kevin Hancock Ltd a great team of people with a deep understanding of the UK’s food manufacturing and retail market, especially in meat – and we have a passion for what we do. The UK has always been a bit different to Europe, and that is even more so with Brexit. Above all, Thermotraffic and Nichirei shared our vision of adding value to the client.

From our point of view, we are now in a better position to expand. Our current location in Newark is good, but we needed more coverage across the UK and this is now possible, especially now that Norish has joined the family. They have six sites across UK and we will be offering more of our services at their sites.

A people business

I’m a massive people person. It’s all about the people who work for us and good ideas can come from anywhere so let’s listen. I also like to grow and develop you if you work for us. I came away from school with very little in the way of qualifications but I am proof that if you drive for your goals you will achieve them.

The objective is to offer customers an end-to-end supply chain solution, all over the world, and we are the UK part of that chain along with Norish. We are not the biggest, but we will be the best and we are looking for the people who can help us to achieve that. You’ll be coming into an environment where we’ll work with you to develop your career and future. And that future is bright because this is a market characterized by real growth and innovation.