Profit Sharing Retirement Plan & Trust of National Frozen Foods Corp.

Profit Sharing Retirement Plan & Trust of National Frozen Foods Corp.

The plan serves as the retirement vehicle for the hourly workforce of National Frozen Foods Corp., a processor of frozen vegetables with facilities in Albany, Chehalis, Moses Lake, and Quincy. Founder Frank Tiegs, who also founded Oregon Potato Company, established a family enterprise that extends into farmland across Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. He was a prominent member of the American Frozen Food Institute and was inducted posthumously into its Hall of Fame. The trust's investment posture blends distressed debt and fund of funds commitments, according to its public record — a defensive allocation that contrasts with the simpler index-based structures common among manufacturing 401(k) plans. The plan's employer contributions are profit-sharing based, tied directly to the corporation's financial performance. Operational assets tied to the sponsor include industrial processing facilities in Oregon and Washington, as well as extensive Tiegs family farmland holdings. Keith Tiegs, Frank's son, now serves as President and CEO of the broader family business empire, while Dick Grader runs National Frozen Foods Corp. directly. The plan's governance sits with the corporate entity, and no separate investment committee or external advisor has been publicly identified. February 2024: Frank Tiegs, the plan's founder and principal wealth creator, died, triggering a likely succession review for the plan's oversight. Unlike multi-employer or public pension funds, this plan is a single-sponsor profit-sharing trust anchored to a single operating company. That structure concentrates investment risk around National Frozen Foods' profitability, but it also allows for a bespoke, illiquid credit strategy that would be impractical in a more commoditized corporate 401(k) plan.