Food Supply Chain Innovation Gets a Boost From New $200M PE Fund

By Gerelyn Terzo, reprinted from Global AgInvesting Media, WIA's sister publication (November 5, 2024)

PHT Investment Group, a Greenwich, Conn.-based investment firm owned by JL White Investments, has introduced a new fund to support its targeted mission of transforming the post-harvest infrastructure sector. PHT Growth Fund LP, the firm's PE platform, was formed to make strategic acquisitions and investments into temperature-controlled food supply chains with a view toward moving fresh produce from field to table with greater efficiency and sustainability.

PHT has established a $200 million fund target across a six-year hold period and has identified four projects for the investment vehicle, including operating companies and critical infrastructure assets. While their focus runs the spectrum of pre-cooling and cold storage, food processing, transportation, cross-docking, consolidation and distribution, the common thread among them is maintaining a given temperature range for fresh produce and other perishable food items.

PHT Investment Ground Founder and CEO Jim White, Ph.D., described the post-harvest infrastructure sector as "long overdue" for improvement, with over $1 trillion worth of food going to waste globally each year. He shared, "Our new fund will dramatically reduce that wastage through the changes we are making in the industry. Investing in a carefully selected portfolio of cold storage infrastructure assets and mission-critical logistics will increase productivity, increase shelf life, increase the nutritional value of fresh produce, and reduce waste. All of this will result in savings at the retail level…as well as profits to growers and investors."

While White has set out to build the industry's first and only U.S. investment firm dedicated to the post-harvest infrastructure sector, his vision goes beyond the national borders as he seeks to make a global impact while disrupting and innovating his way into an often "overlooked and underfunded" sector. He has set his sights on the food produce supply chain, which is ripe for technological disruption.

"Right now, one-third of all food produced for human consumption is lost due to spoilage, mainly because of outdated infrastructure and improper handling after harvest. We aim to change that. Our mission is to combine diversified investments in pre-cooling, cold storage, infrastructure, logistics and technology to revolutionize the ag industry and eliminate food waste…to the immense benefit of growers, consumers, and investors," White said.

Post-harvest infrastructure is the cradle of the global food supply chain, connecting the technology, logistics and sustainable infrastructure through which commodities have been managed for decades. By pre-cooling fresh produce straight from the harvest and prior to placing it into cold storage, both the nutritional value and shelf life of the food items are optimized.

In his 1976 book "Hidden Harvest: A Systems Approach to Postharvest Technology", author David Spurgeon suggests that the post-harvest system should have a keen focus on the small farmer, where the challenges are easy to spot but harder to resolve. Spurgeon states, "There is no simple 100-meter dash solution. The transfer of post-harvest technologies is a process, not an event."

PHT's White was eager to share his firm's history with LPs, family offices, institutions and corporate investors who may be interested in the fund, sharing the firm's operational roots back to the Great Depression era when the Growers Ice Company was formed in Salinas, California. He shared, "Back then, Growers Ice coined the term ‘iceberg lettuce' when train cars full of lettuce were cooled by block ice produced at our original campus facility. That campus still operates today and remains a major fixture in the Salinas Valley agriculture industry. Over these 88 years, we've developed deep sector expertise in fresh produce pre-cooling, cold storage, infrastructure, logistics, and industrial equipment design, engineering and manufacturing."

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