Obama to visit Louisville for food and beverage logistics industry

President Obama will visit Louisville, Ky., this Thursday in his first visit to the city since taking office in 2008.

In a visit directly connected to the city’s tremendous logistics industry, President Obama will tour Indatus, a technology company providing cloud-based communication solutions, hardware and infrastructure.

Mayor Greg Fischer said the president chose to visit Louisville to speak about the city’s efforts in regards to the changing economy, including initiatives surrounding food and beverage logistics and e-commerce.

Here are a few of the latest announcements from Louisville’s food and beverage logistics leaders:

● FoodPort, a massive 24-acre regional food distribution center, is slated to break ground this Fall in the heart of the city and it’s getting a lot of press for its innovative approach to co-locating agricultural businesses and bringing them into the center of the community.

● UPS, which has its Worldport hub (the nation’s largest airport sorting hub) in Louisville, has won an Excellence in Greenhouse Gas Management from the EPA for goal achievement. UPS in 2011 set a goal to reduce its carbon intensity from transportation 10% by 2016, as measured from a 2007 baseline. UPS surpassed that goal in 2012 and 2013, achieving a 12% and 13% reduction, respectively. This goal also helped drive a 774,000 metric ton decrease in certain emissions from 2007 to 2013, EPA found.

● UPS also opened a new warehousing and distribution center in the Louisville region just last October, now bringing its total Louisville region footprint to 4.4 Million square feet.

● Brown-Forman, national spirits and beverage logistics leader, executive Christy Brown was responsible for helping draw Prince Charles to Louisville for a visit just this month to highlight the region’s leadership in sustainable agriculture and logistics.

● Coca-Cola Bottling, Co just cut the ribbon on a new $12 Million distribution center in Louisville, consolidating multiple operations into this facility in Louisville due to its massive transportation network.