This week’s podcast guest is Kevin Marchetti the co-founder of Bay Grove, a real estate private equity firm that has built the world’s largest portfolio of cold-storage warehouses, and its operating company, Lineage Logistics, that runs the business. The company has scaled up by acquiring different businesses and portfolios, and now Lineage employs over 25,000 people globally. It offers a deep set of services to its clients, beyond the four walls of the warehouse, including logistics, transportation, food prep, and information technology. 

This business moves beyond pure real estate into true partnership and adds value services to the industry client base. 

Kevin talks about how they built the portfolio through acquisitions of long-standing local cold storage family businesses, raising over $7 billion of capital, and the process of creating the Lineage operating platform. A story about strawberries encapsulates the lifecycle of the work, from picking to freezing, to using it as an energy source in the warehouse, to sending it to the stores for consumers. 

The discussion also hits on Kevin’s commitment to carbon reduction and the work Lineage is doing to establish the future of renewable energy in the warehouse sectors. He talks about being the fifth largest adopter of solar panels in the United States and signing the Climate Pledge for zero net carbon emissions by 2040.