LOGISTICS BRIEFS

-- TheIdaho-Statesmansaid Boise-based supermarket retailerWinCo Foods LLC, opened its fourth full-line distribution center, a 750,000-square-foot operation in Boise, to serve Northwest stores. WinCo has 67 stores in Washington, Idaho, Nevada, California and Oregon and is projecting 25 percent growth -- to reach 84 stores -- by 2011. Officials said the new DC can serve as many as 28 stores but will initially support 13 units. It will serve the Boise-area region and new sites in Utah, including several near Salt Lake City. WinCo has three other full-line distribution centers in Woodburn and Myrtle Creek, Ore., and Modesto, Calif.

- Refrigerated and frozen rail shipperRailex USA, Riverhead, N.Y., saidThomas Shurstadjoined the company as president. Shurstad worked previously with Pacer International, Inc., Pacer Stacktrain and The Beltway Railroad. Railex also hiredMichael Kingas vice president and general counsel.

- WOW Logistics, Appleton, Wis., said it is converting more than 80,000 square feet of its Chippewa Falls, Wis., location (a 648,000-square-foot site) to racked cooler space with 11,000 pallet positions. Officials say WOW's sixth refrigerated location will offer controlled temperature storage ranging from +38F to +50F.

- Public refrigerated warehouse automation will be a major focus of theInternational Association for Cold Storage and Construction(IACSC) 29th annual conference and expo, November 5-9, 2009 at the Ritz Carlton in New Orleans. There will be two in-depth case studies on automation systems installed in major refrigerated warehouses, one of which will be presented by IARW Chairman Larry Laurin. Another session will demonstrate how automation can achieve a smaller building footprint and reduce operational costs. Visit www.iacsc.org/iacsc09 to register or get more information.