Jet Pro Security and Surveillance Inc

In 1986, Keith Kenneally left the airline industry to start an air freight business that catered to the emerging produce industry in California. According to Keith: “there were hundreds of freight forwarders back then and only a few had the guts to specialize in perishable freight. Any specialization in 1987 was limited to only two basic services. First, understanding how to properly hand stack airline containers. Second, provide this loading service 7 days per week between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m.” A 24/7 warehouse operation was un-heard of back in that day, but has since become an industry standard.

As business grew, competition entered the freight market seeking a piece of the global demand for California fruits and vegetables. Keith’s relationships with industry leaders led him to the post harvest research department of U.C. Davis where he learned about the natural occurring respiration of fresh produce, microbial decay, and the need for cold chain preservation. The perishable air freight industry was so new in 1987 that many forwarders did not have a cold room for storage prior to shipping. In addition, nothing was being used to prevent heat gain during the shipping process so any airline service failures would result in massive freight claims. Worst of all, air carriers did not take liability for the perishable nature of fresh cargo. Consequently, shippers absorbed huge losses whenever a flight was delayed.

It was quite obvious to Keith that to solve the industry problem of delivering hot and decaying product to end users, cold storage and heat retardant loading materials were necessary. “Our access to usable insulation materials was limited in the 1980's. We first used polystyrene foam and customized panels to line the inside of shipping containers. The foam was effective to some degree, but the work was tedious and polystyrene was environmentally unfriendly. Our East Coast clients even had trouble disposing of the foam waste.”