About Castellini
More Than a Century in Motion.
Our roots are in produce. Our business is your supply chain.
Castellini is a cold chain logistics company with more than 130 years of produce expertise embedded in everything we do, how we store product, how we handle it, how we communicate about it, and how we move it.
That background matters because perishable logistics has consequences that general freight doesn’t. Temperature variance, quality windows, and shelf life aren’t abstractions here. They’re operational realities our team has managed for generations, and that experience is now entirely in service of one thing: being the most capable, most reliable cold chain partner in the Midwest.
A Cold Chain Logistics Team Built on Quality, Accountability, and Partnership
Every member of the Castellini team works from the same foundation: your supply chain matters, quality is non-negotiable, and partnership means we’re invested in your outcomes, not just your volume.
Let’s Move Your Supply Chain Forward
Our Story
Four generations. 130+ years. One commitment, to the people and the products that depend on us to get it right.
1896
J.J. Castellini founded the company in Cincinnati, Ohio, leveraging the city’s position as a major rail terminal to build one of the region’s most capable produce distribution operations. Before nearly anyone else in the industry, J.J. introduced typewriters, adding machines, and mechanical equipment to daily operations — an early signal of what would become a company-wide instinct for innovation.
1913
J.J. serves as President of the National League of the produce industry and founds the International Apple Association, launching National Apple Week as one of the first coordinated produce marketing campaigns in the country. His invention of the celery washer, the industry’s first mechanized washing system, becomes the company’s first value-added service offering, a thread that runs through the business to this day.
1935
Robert H. Castellini advises over 100 local growers to organize the Cincinnati Produce Growers Association, establishing Castellini as both an operational partner and a long-term advocate for the producer community. The company’s commitment to the people behind the product takes root here.
1952
Following the unexpected death of Robert H. Castellini at 48, his daughter Claire steps into a leadership role alongside her uncles and a loyal sales team. A crisis becomes a demonstration of organizational resilience the business holds, the culture holds, and the next chapter begins.
1967
Castellini becomes exclusive distributor for the Hamilton County Vegetable Growers Association, expanding its regional footprint and deepening relationships with local greenhouse growers across the greater Cincinnati area.
1970s–1980s
Castellini builds a fully integrated refrigerated transportation system from the ground up — with on-ground source buying, controlled trucking, regional refrigerated warehouses, and dedicated truck fleets at each location. Value-added processing capabilities expand to meet the evolving needs of both food service and retail customers.
These investments mark the beginning of a fundamental shift: Castellini is becoming less a market participant and more a supply chain infrastructure company, one with the product knowledge of a produce operator and the logistics capability of a purpose-built distribution network.
2000s–2010s
Castellini grows into one of the most capable wholesale cold chain operations in the United States, with facilities and distribution reach spanning Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Florida, and California. The company employs over 1,400 people and delivers a full range of services, including cold storage, fresh-cut processing, ripening, repacking, and asset-based transportation, under one roof.
2020
When the pandemic fractured supply chains across the country, Castellini responded by leaning into its core strengths — innovation and flexibility. Infrastructure expanded. Logistics capabilities deepened. And Castellini took on extensive co-packing and direct to consumer fulfillment partnerships, extending its service scope to meet the moment and positioning the company for what comes next.
What began as a crisis response became a capability leap, and a clear signal of where Castellini is headed: deeper into logistics, further into partnership, and fully committed to being the cold chain operation that holds when everything else is uncertain.
