Founded in 2012, Castelo Cold Storage has built its reputation on preserving the integrity of perishable goods for a nationwide network of food supply chain partners. From its base in Pharr, Texas, the company offers 45,000 square feet of refrigerated storage, advanced freezers, temperature-controlled loading docks, pre-cooling machines, and comprehensive repacking services — all operating under PRIMUS and PRIMUS Organic certifications, with an in-house USDA office on site.
But like every operator in fresh food logistics, Castelo faces an industry under mounting pressure: daily safety recalls, tightening FSMA 204 traceability deadlines, and margin-draining pallet rejections when quality issues surface too late.
A premier cold storage operation in the Rio Grande Valley
The Castelo Cold Storage leadership team at their facility in Pharr, Texas
Castelo's strength has always been its people and its processes. But as regulatory demands escalated and customer expectations around traceability rose, it became clear that paper-based systems couldn't keep pace. The gap between what compliance documentation said and what was physically happening on the facility floor was growing — and the cost of that gap was becoming undeniable.
The challenge: when paper can't keep pace with the floor
For years, the fresh food supply chain has run on a patchwork of spreadsheets, paper logs, and reactive quality checks. That approach is increasingly untenable. A single contaminated lot can trigger a recall that takes days to trace. Retailer and FDA recordkeeping requirements demand a level of documentation that manual entry simply can't sustain. And every quality problem caught after a pallet ships is margin lost.
The core problem Castelo set out to solve is one the whole industry shares: the gap between compliance on paper and physical reality on the facility floor.
Industry pressures
The fresh food supply chain is under pressure from every direction
Daily safety recalls
Fast, lot-level answers needed around the clock — delays erode customer trust overnight.
FSMA 204 traceability deadlines
Federal recordkeeping requirements that manual entry and spreadsheets simply cannot sustain.
Margin-draining pallet rejections
Every quality issue caught after a pallet ships is margin permanently lost — not recoverable.
Disconnected spreadsheets & paper logs
Legacy tools that can't keep pace with physical reality on the facility floor.
Manual data entry and reactive QA are no longer enough.
The solution: an intelligent digital workforce
Castelo deployed ProduceX's Visio — an agentic quality and workflow platform — across its operations. Rather than adding another dashboard for staff to maintain, Visio runs as an intelligent digital workforce on the facility floor, handling the documentation and monitoring work in the background.
ProduceX Visio capabilities
An intelligent digital workforce on the facility floor
Accurate lot-level traceability
Every pallet moving through the network is tracked and tied to its lot in real time — audit-ready from the moment it arrives.
Automated quality workflows
Complex quality checks that previously relied on manual entry now run autonomously in the background — no staff overhead.
Instantaneous quality reports
Documentation is generated the moment a check completes. No after-the-fact paperwork, no data entry lag.
Real-time communication
Live alerts and status updates flow directly across the facility team and out to customers — automatically.
All running securely in the background — no administrative drag.
Because the intelligence runs securely in the background, Castelo personnel can execute flawless safety protocols without the administrative drag of manual reporting.
Our mission is to eliminate the gap between paperwork compliance and real-time physical reality on the facility floor. Castelo recognises that the future of fresh food logistics isn't just about temperature control — it's about operational intelligence.
Sukanya Romyanon
Co-Founder, ProduceX
Passing the advantage to customers
For Castelo, the partnership is ultimately about its customers — many of them forward-thinking growers, distributors, and retail partners who want to stay at the forefront of the industry. By equipping these early adopters with next-generation capabilities, Castelo positions them to navigate complex FDA requirements and demanding retailer standards with far less friction.
Our vision has always been to equip our customers with the most innovative tools available so they can lead the market with confidence. By integrating ProduceX's autonomous workflows, we are actively helping our forward-thinking partners future-proof their operations through real-time quality reporting and communication — ensuring that every pallet moving through our network represents the highest standard of safety and quality.
Jose Ricardo Diaz
Sales Director, Castelo Cold Storage
What Castelo is building toward
Targets of the deployment.
Accelerated throughput
Faster receiving and quality checks across the facility — less time per pallet, more pallets per shift.
Irrefutable lot traceability
Every pallet tied to its lot and instantly ready for FSMA 204 and retailer audit requests.
Less contamination margin bleed
Catching quality issues proactively, before a pallet is rejected and the loss is locked in.
Setting a new standard for the industry
As federal deadlines for complete traceability approach, forward-thinking facilities are shifting from legacy compliance shields to networked intelligence. Through this partnership, Castelo Cold Storage and ProduceX are working to prove that robust food safety and high-velocity commerce can exist seamlessly together — one digitized facility floor at a time.