City of Shafter & The Wonderful Company sign deal
Wonderful Logistics Center Shafter
June 26, 2025 – The Port of Los Angeles has signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the City of Shafter, Calif. and The Wonderful Company to promote more efficient two-way trade connections with California’s Central Valley, with a focus on bringing more U.S. exports through the port and its terminals.
Central to the agreement is the Wonderful Logistics Center, a 3,400-acre, master-planned industrial development owned by The LA based Wonderful Company. Located strategically along the BNSF rail mainline in Shafter—a fast-growing economic area near Bakersfield—the logistics hub and container depot already serves multiple Fortune 100 companies, including Ross, Amazon, Target, Walmart, among others, and is uniquely positioned to support exports from the San Joaquin Valley and beyond.
“Both The Wonderful Company and the City of Shafter have a well-planned vision for creating jobs and promoting economic growth in the Central Valley, and the Port of Los Angeles stands ready to help,” said Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka. “This agreement represents our commitment to support faster and more efficient service to and from the Central Valley right to our terminals and to markets across the world.”
“Our partnership with the Port of Los Angeles marks a significant evolution in the supply chain, enhancing cargo velocity and enabling California’s farmers to become more competitive and agile in the global marketplace,” said Wonderful’s Vice President of Logistics Sepehr Matinifar.
Specifics of the agreement include a pledge to promote sustainable and efficient two-way domestic and international trade connections between the Wonderful Logistics Center and the Port; conduct exporter outreach in the Central Valley; strategize on ways to develop mutually beneficial business opportunities; collaborate and educate supply chain stakeholders on the partnership benefits to the state and national economy; and share best practices on goods movement workforce training and development.
The Wonderful Company will also be adding a new international rail terminal in Shafter, scheduled for completion in 2026. Serving importers and exporters with a dedicated shuttle train running between the San Pedro Bay port complex and Shafter, the rail terminal will increase efficiency and capacity, and deliver significant environmental benefits by reducing truck traffic and streamlining container movement. Nearby housing, job training and other community amenities are also planned to support the Center’s expansion.
Shafter City Manager Lance Lippincott hailed the plan. Lippincott is the former head of the Kings County EDC.
Signing of the agreement supports recent efforts by the Port of Los Angeles to better leverage the surplus of empty containers at its terminals, and more efficiently position those for agricultural exporters. The Wonderful Company is one of the largest agriculture, real estate, and consumer packaged goods companies in the U.S, and one of the largest owners and operators of farming and business properties in the Central Valley – major producers of tree nuts, citrus and pomegranates and wine. Company orchards cover 200 square miles of California’s Central Valley—a region that is home to 5,000 of their employees and their families.
A recent Bakersfield Californian newspaper article details Wonderful’s expansion plans around Shafter.
At the heart of the company’s proposal is a plan to expand its existing, 1,600-acre industrial park, which now employs an estimated 13,000 people. Its goal is to add 1,300 acres comprising 21 million square feet of warehouses.
Other Wonderful investments that are part of the distribution hub are designed to maximize efficiencies involved in moving products to and from ports in Southern California.
One that opened in January at a temporary site within the complex is a container depot allowing importers to drop off empty shipping containers for use by the region’s agricultural exporters. By Wonderful’s estimate, the operation cuts the number of miles trucks must travel by 42%.
A separate facility planned to open in the first quarter of next year is a rail-served inland port that will measure 134 acres. Its purpose is to receive containers, place them on a chassis and send them to a warehouse within the park, where it will be unloaded and returned to the rail facility.
Also connected to the existing BNSF Railway railroad will be a five-acre cold storage facility handling refrigerated shipments of meat and other goods from the Midwest. The project is allowed by right and won’t require the city council’s approval.
North of the industrial park, Wonderful proposes to develop up to 3,500 new single-family homes on 650 acres a mile east of downtown Shafter. The company said the homes, designed in consultation with community focus groups, will be affordable for the center’s workers but not government-subsidized.