Columbus Vegetable Oils](http://www.cvoils.com) has commissioned a new rail-served packing and distribution facility in North Las Vegas, Nevada, adding meaningful production capacity to its West Coast supply chain as the fourth-generation, family-operated company marks 90 years in business. The site is designed to ship millions of pounds of edible oils annually to food manufacturers, foodservice operators, and retail customers across the region.

The facility carries an oil portfolio that spans conventional, non-GMO, and organic certifications — soybean, canola, olive, safflower, avocado, and corn — positioning Columbus to serve the full spectrum of retailer and operator specifications on the West Coast. For grocery buyers, that breadth matters: category managers sourcing center-store oils and dressings increasingly require suppliers capable of fulfilling both national-brand-equivalent and private-label programs from a single, SQF-certified distribution point.

West Coast Supply Logic

Rail access at the North Las Vegas site is a deliberate infrastructure choice. Rail-served facilities typically support higher inbound bulk volume at lower per-unit freight cost than truck-only nodes, an advantage that translates directly into competitive delivered pricing for West Coast grocery distributors and direct-store accounts. The location also reduces transit times for customers across Nevada, California, Arizona, and the broader Mountain West — a lane that has historically been served from Columbus's Illinois-based operations.

The expansion arrives at a moment when edible-oil supply chain resilience is a top-of-mind concern for category managers. Olive oil prices have experienced significant volatility in recent crop years driven by European drought, while canola and soybean markets remain sensitive to global trade flows. A domestic, West Coast-based inventory buffer offers retailers and foodservice distributors a hedge against import-driven supply disruptions. Columbus's in-stock position — more than 300 oils ready to ship — supports the kind of fill-rate performance that earns planogram permanence and reduces out-of-stock exposure on high-velocity cooking-oil SKUs.

Private Label and Custom Blending

Beyond bulk supply, the Las Vegas facility extends Columbus's custom blending and private-label capabilities to West Coast accounts. Own-brand programs in edible oils represent one of grocery retail's stronger margin opportunities; store-brand cooking oils routinely outperform national brands on turn rate in value and mainstream formats. Columbus operates under recognized proprietary brands — Butcher Boy®, Mike's Brand®, Sunrise Shortening®, Nature's Secret®, Sorrento's Olive Oil®, and Soaper's Choice® — while simultaneously supporting retailer own-brand production, a dual capability that broadens its commercial appeal across both branded and unbranded retail channels.

"Our philosophy has always been simple: We don't sell oil, we sell service," said Paulette Gagliardo, president of Columbus Vegetable Oils. "We're proud to bring that same commitment to Las Vegas — and the entire West Coast." Gagliardo's framing underscores a supplier positioning that competes on service metrics — delivery speed, order fill rate, pricing consistency — rather than commodity differentiation alone, which resonates with procurement teams managing EDLP and HiLo pricing programs across large grocery banners.

As a certified woman-owned business operating SQF-certified facilities, Columbus also meets supplier-diversity and food-safety audit requirements that are increasingly standard prerequisites for grocery and foodservice distribution agreements.

Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.