James Bell, President & CEO, Viking Cold Solutions

In an interview with Invest:, James Bell, president and CEO at Viking Cold Solutions, discussed Viking Cold Solutions’ growth, AI and energy technology, Houston’s business environment, expansion, and priorities. “Houston was a natural base for us,” Bell said.

What were Viking Cold Solutions’ most significant developments over the past year?

It’s been a momentous year. The company originated around technology that transports and stores food more efficiently while protecting it. The technology combines energy efficiency, resiliency, and food quality. That is a good business and really got us a lot of attention. What’s been interesting in the last year or so is that we’ve all lived through this massive increase in energy demand across the grid and globally. As a result, many clients are dealing with electrical-cost increases they have never seen before. Some have seen 20%, 30%, or even up to 50% increases in their electrical costs.

Our phone has been ringing off the hook with clients who work in the food industry broadly, who are trying to manage those direct operating costs, because increases of that size are difficult to absorb. A retail operation, food-processing plant, or food-storage facility cannot grow fast enough to outstrip that level of direct costs. It’s hitting their P&L directly at the bottom line. So that’s where we come in. Our technology helps manage demand and electricity use.

How is Viking using AI, and what technologies are shaping its operations?

When I first began running the company, we engaged closely with global companies that did sensing and digitization of assets. That was broadly called the Internet of Things and the Industrial Internet of Things. It involved the proliferation of sensors that gathered data from monitors, phones, cars, and other assets, producing an incredible increase in data aggregation. Many large companies have built significant businesses off of utilizing that data in different ways. From an early stage, we used machine learning and AI with that digitization, before AI became a widely used term.

We were not using LLMs. We aggregated and used the data in our optimization service to save energy. We created a digital twin of each facility and analyzed the facility in real time against the digital twin to find the best ways to optimize from an energy standpoint and from a product quality standpoint. We’ve been doing that for 12 years.

AI is just the latest thing. We appreciate and use AI because it makes our jobs easier. The reason is that the amount of data coming from these digital twins and our facilities worldwide is overwhelming for a person. To AI, it’s just another steady data stream, and so we can use that data much more effectively and analyze it much faster than when people worked behind machine-learning systems.

It’s transforming our business right now. It’s still too early to allow AI to make the most critical decisions that we make in our business, such as direct access to critical infrastructure. AI can make suggestions, conduct analysis, and run reports 24 hours a day, while employees work limited hours and have many responsibilities. This has made things remarkably easier for us.

What advantages does Houston provide to Viking Cold Solutions?

Houston’s first and biggest advantage is that it is a global city. It’s the most diverse city in the United States, without question. I’ve lived all over the world, and I can say without question that this Houston is the most diverse city in the United States. That means we have people who speak different languages. We have companies from all over the world. We have people who live here from all over the world. That advantage means you get to see and use different skill sets and cultural perspectives, and that produces a more global product. Our technology is designed to work seamlessly worldwide.

Products such as fashion or food require changes in packaging, marketing, and distribution when moving from the United States to Spain. Our thermal energy storage technology can go everywhere and help everyone. Houston was a natural base for us. You have access to the globe from here. It’s an inexpensive city to start and run a company. You have robust access to talent and to capital. Many things about Houston attracted my partners and me, such as quality of life. Although the city tends to be a little hot in the summer, it has about nine months of good weather, which is an advantage, and it means we can be quite productive from here. 

Where do you see opportunities to expand into new markets or applications?

The European market makes complete sense for us. It is culturally similar and has an advanced and sophisticated food chain, with many local markets that we also have to manage. The EU is a great opportunity set for us. Then, of course, Asia broadly makes sense, and we’ve installed systems in Japan, Australia, Europe, and England. We’ve proven out the technology, and now it’s about picking partners who can take the technology to their markets and clients, because we’re technology providers.

We don’t have a sales group that works globally; we work through channels in different places, because I know I’m not the best person to set up a sales operation and access the EU market or the Asian market. There are companies there that do great work, and who would love to have our technology and be able to sell it to their clients in the food manufacturing, storage, or retail business. There are three large legs on the stool. We can serve storage, manufacturing, and retail. Any combination of these can make a good business, and a lot of our clients and partners are in two or three of them.

What are Viking Cold Solutions’ key goals and priorities?

Our key goals include growing the company with our largest clients. These are household-name retailers and logistics providers. We have calls every day with them. They see the global application of the technology, and we want to go globally with our clients. It makes the most sense to go with them, because then I don’t have to re-establish the business internationally; I can go with some of the world’s largest companies and work with them wherever they need us.

The second goal is to continue to grow the company to the point where we can serve more clients in more places. The third, more aspirational goal, is to take this technology into all the places where it can make a real life-changing difference. We’ve been approached by the government of India because we can better preserve milk, and milk spoilage is a massive problem in India. In Africa, major famines occur every few years. We can help those countries better deal with challenges like that. About a third of our company is owned by nonprofits whose missions parallel the Viking Cold’s goal of serving humankind on a larger scale.