Sno Pac
Sno Pac ice harvesting. Sno Pac founder, J.P. Gengler (left), harvesting ice on Spring Brook Lake near Caledonia, MN.
Supplier to PFC since the 1980’s
Location: Caledonia, Minnesota
22 miles from PFC—La Crosse
75 miles from PFC—Rochester
Sno Pac of Caledonia, Minnesota has been a People’s Food Co-op supplier since the early days of the La Crosse co-op. Sno Pac was founded back in 1943 by J.P. Gengler, and now the fourth generation of Genglers continues to supply organic, frozen fruits and vegetables to PFC shoppers. Pete Gengler, the current CEO (and grandson of Sno Pac’s founder J.P. Gengler), remembers driving Sno Pac deliveries to People’s when the La Crosse store was in the old Bruha’s Grocery building on Adams Street.
About 100 years ago, J.P. Gengler had a lumber business in the Caledonia area. In the winter, they’d cut ice from a spring-fed lake and ship it south in the summer. J.P.’s son, Leonard, took advantage of the invention of refrigeration and built a locker plant where local farmers, including Leonard, could store their food.
Leonard Gengler grew strawberries, gooseberries, and vegetables, which he processed and froze. Leonard’s son, Pete Gengler, remembers that the family had 20 acres of strawberries when he was a child. “I was picking strawberries when I was five. I made $11 one summer day—really good money when you’re five years old.”
Sno Pac has always been organic. “In the 1940s,” Pete says, “when all the chemicals started showing up in farming, my father decided not to use them. 4 5 He didn’t think it was a good idea. As soon as the chemicals started being used, people started having trouble with them—sensitivities and allergies—so my father had customers right away. He was shipping all over the country—special orders to people with allergies.”
The company now has 3,000 acres in organic production and works with another 50 local organic farmers supplying frozen organic produce to retailers from Maine to California. Despite the national growth in sales, Sno Pac remains a locally owned Southeast Minnesota outfit, supplied by local farms. “The majority of the farms we work with are within 20 miles [of Caledonia],” Pete notes. Sno Pac supplies People’s Food Co-op with delicious berries, corn, peas, edamame, and many other vegetables, year-round. A big plus is that the packaging Sno Pac uses is made of recyclable material. You can rinse the package and recycle it (#4 - accepted in La Crosse county) when you’re done. Check your local municipality’s recycling requirements.
Like all of PFC’s local suppliers, Sno Pac has had issues: extreme rain events and unpredictable weather brought about by our changing climate, but Gengler expects SnoPac to still be farming 100 years from now—even if there isn’t any more ice to pull out of the lakes.