Iowa Rep. Randy Feenstra has introduced a bill to boost the country’s cold chain storage infrastructure, which would provide funding to ports and trade organizations in order to ensure that U.S. agricultural exports are not lost or damaged in transit.
The Fortifying Refrigeration Infrastructure and Developing Global Exports — or FRIDGE — Act was first put before Congress in 2023, but failed to make it out of the House agriculture committee. Feenstra reintroduced it on March 25, 2025, this time adding $1 million in annual federal funding between 2026 and 2030 for the USDA’s Foreign Market Development Program, which works with U.S. agricultural producers and processors to promote their exports overseas.
“One of the biggest barriers to increasing trade in emerging markets is the lack of cold chain capacity,” said Global Cold Chain Alliance (GCCA) president and CEO Sara Stickler. “The FRIDGE Act would strengthen the ability of these markets to safely and efficiently receive high-quality U.S. perishable commodities, creating new trade opportunities, improving food security and nutrition, and reducing food loss and waste.”
According to the GCCA, the U.S. loses billions of tons of perishable food products each year to poor cold chain storage outcomes, due to a lack of proper facilities, improper food safety handling, and insufficient training for cold chain workers. Feenstra’s office also pointed to a need to diversify U.S. agricultural exports in new markets, given that China, Japan and Mexico accounted for 63% of the country’s pork exports in 2021, while Japan, South Korea and China accounted for 60% of U.S. beef exports in that same year.
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