Case study
A failing walk-in, four local ranchers, and nine business days
- Business
- A third-generation retail butcher shop
- Location
- Western Iowa
- Product
- Cold storage financing
- Industry
- Butcher shops
$202,000
9 business days to funding
- Total project
- $202,000
- Down payment
- $20,200
- Rate
- 10.6% APR
- Term
- 84 months
- Monthly payment
- $3,060
- Time to funding
- 9 business days
Sec. 01 — The business
Who they are.
A retail butcher shop in western Iowa, in its third generation of family ownership, turning roughly $1.1 million a year across a service counter and a small wholesale book with two local restaurants. Eleven employees, two of them cutters who had been there more than fifteen years. The shop owned its reputation locally and had never missed a payment on anything.
Sec. 02 — The problem
What was actually wrong.
The walk-in cooler dated to the early 1990s and the condensing unit was failing. The shop had no blast chilling at all, which meant cooling logs were being satisfied by holding product overnight in the retail case — workable, marginal, and a citation waiting to happen. More expensive than the risk was the opportunity: four local ranchers had asked about custom slaughter drop-off, and the shop had turned all four down because it could not hold or chill the volume.
Sec. 03 — The constraint
What made it hard.
Two constraints, pulling against each other. The refrigeration contractor could not guarantee the existing condensing unit through another summer, which put a hard clock on the decision. And the shop leased its building, which meant a permanent refrigeration installation needed landlord consent before any lender would fund it. The owner had also been quoted only for the box and the refrigeration package — $113,000 — and had no idea the full project was closer to $200,000 once electrical, drainage and demolition were included.
Sec. 04 — The product
What we used, and why.
Cold storage financing, at $202,000 over 84 months at 10.6 percent, with 10 percent down. We priced the full scope rather than the contractor’s partial quote, which meant the loan covered electrical, drainage, demolition and a contingency line rather than stopping at the panel. Equipment financing alone would have funded the box and declined the construction, leaving the project half-funded — the most expensive outcome available. The landlord consent letter was started on day one, which is why the file closed in nine business days rather than five weeks.
Sec. 05 — The outcome
What happened.
The new cooler, a 500 lb blast chiller and new condensing units went in across eleven days. Custom slaughter drop-off opened for all four ranchers the following season, adding a revenue line the shop had been declining for three years. Documented cooling times moved from hand-written logs to automatic recording, which removed the compliance exposure entirely. The monthly payment of $3,060 was covered by the custom line inside the first season, and the reduction in energy cost against the old system covered a meaningful share of it before that.
This case study is a composite illustration written to show how a file of this type is structured. It is not attributed to a real, named business, and the outcome has not been independently verified. Figures shown are illustrative and are not an offer of credit.
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