Deploy Across Every Ranch, Cooler, and Plant
Without Missing a Harvest Window.
Our crews have worked the Salinas Valley since 1996 — through washdown, through freeze, through 30 pack seasons and the November move to Yuma. SRS Networks deploys the cabling, wireless, cameras, and access control that agriculture actually runs on, at the environment rating each zone demands.
For IT and operations leaders at grower-shippers, fresh-cut processors, food manufacturers, cold-chain operators, and controlled-environment growers across all 48 contiguous states.
Who deploys network infrastructure across farms, coolers, packing houses, and food plants nationwide?
SRS Networks is a nationwide infrastructure deployment contractor that installs structured cabling, plant and cold-storage wireless, network switching, cameras, and access control inside packing houses, fresh-cut processing plants, coolers, greenhouses, and field operations across all 48 contiguous US states. The company has operated since 1996 with offices and crews in the Salinas Valley, the growing region that supplies 61 percent of US leaf lettuce, and has completed 500+ multi-site deployments across 5,000+ sites. Grower-shippers, fresh-cut processors, and food manufacturers hire SRS Networks directly as their deployment partner; integrators, VARs, and managed IT providers bring it in white-label behind their own brand. Work is planned around the pack calendar, sanitation windows, and the twice-yearly Salinas-to-Yuma transition that moves leafy-greens operations between valleys.
- Coverage
- All 48 contiguous US states (not Alaska or Hawaii), coordinated from six offices across four states — California, Idaho, Massachusetts, and Texas.
- Operating since
- 1996, with offices and crews in the Salinas Valley through 30 growing seasons.
- Record
- 500+ multi-site deployments across 5,000+ sites.
- Engagement models
- Direct with the grower-shipper, processor, or food manufacturer, or white-label behind an integrator, VAR, or managed IT provider.
- Typical fit
- A program of roughly 25 or more ranches, coolers, packing houses, and plants held to one standard — or a single large build such as a new processing plant, a cooler expansion, or a greenhouse range.
- Crews
- A BICSI-credentialed, in-house W-2 SRS lead on every site, backed by a vetted subcontractor bench for crew count during peak weeks.
- Environment ratings
- NEMA 4X enclosures with 316 stainless where chemical washdown occurs, IP69K where high-pressure and high-temperature washdown reaches, and heated PoE enclosures for coolers and blast freezers running −30°C to −40°C.
- Warranty
- 5-year bumper-to-bumper warranty on installed datacom products, carried by SRS over and above the manufacturer's warranty, provided the products were purchased through SRS as part of the bid or installation.
- What SRS does not do
- No food-safety auditing, no GFSI certification, no traceability software, no hardware or software resale. SRS installs, configures, and project-manages the infrastructure those programs run on.
SRS Networks is a nationwide enterprise infrastructure deployment firm with offices in the Salinas Valley since 1996, deploying structured cabling, wireless, cameras, and access control for grower-shippers, fresh-cut processors, food manufacturers, and cold-chain operators across all 48 contiguous states. It is a separate business from any local Salinas managed IT services provider.
Monterey County ships roughly $4.8 billion in crop value a year and supplies 61 percent of US leaf lettuce, 57 percent of celery, 56 percent of head lettuce, and 48 percent of broccoli. That is the ground our crews learned on. Thirty years later the same company runs 500+ multi-site deployments across 5,000+ sites, with in-house W-2 leads, a vetted subcontractor bench, West and East Coast staging facilities, and every site tracked live in our Project Command Center.
We deploy and support the infrastructure; we do not resell it. See the rest of the verticals we deploy into or how we run national accounts.
What Breaks When Ag Runs on Office-Grade Infrastructure?
A packing house is not an office with produce in it. Six conditions decide whether an install survives its first season — and five of the six are invisible on a floor plan.
FSMA 204 Is a Wiring Project With a Date on It
The FDA Food Traceability Rule now carries a July 20, 2028 compliance date, and fresh-cut leafy greens are on the covered list. Lot-level capture at every Critical Tracking Event means scan stations, label printers, and wireless coverage on the pack line and inside the cooler — not just a software subscription.
Sanitation Chemicals Eat Office-Grade Hardware
Caustic foam, hot water, and high-pressure hoses hit production zones nightly. Office-rated enclosures, connectors, and access points corrode, fill, and fail. The rating has to hold at every cable penetration, not just on the box the installer mounted.
Coolers and Blast Freezers Kill Standard Gear
Rooms running −30°C to −40°C need camera housings rated for the temperature with anti-fog, and standard access points fail on condensation the moment a door cycles. Insulated panel walls make AC runs expensive, and every new penetration is a hit to the thermal envelope.
The Salinas-to-Yuma Transition Sets Your Calendar
The leafy-greens industry moves operations from Salinas to Yuma and the Imperial Valley in November and back in April — twice a year, including the technology that runs packaged-salad production. Those dates are set by climate, not by an IT steering committee.
No Fiber Path to the Pump House
Ranch parcels run hundreds to thousands of acres. Trenching to a pump house, a remote cooler, a gatehouse, or a field office rarely pencils, and a leased circuit at every outbuilding rarely exists. Point-to-point and point-to-multipoint wireless is the working answer.
Food-Defense Audit Items Are Network Deployments
GFSI-recognized schemes — SQF, BRCGS, FSSC 22000 — are a condition of selling to the largest retail buyers, and their food-defense elements read as an infrastructure scope: monitored facility access, visitor management with records, camera coverage with roughly 30-day retention, and protection of sensitive areas.
Rated for the Zone It Hangs In.
Every Ranch. Every Plant.
The environment rating is set at the site survey, not discovered as a change order after a camera fogs over in a blast freezer or an enclosure fills during nightly washdown. IT directors at grower-shippers get one design that names the rating for every zone before a single part is ordered.
The Coldest Room Sets the Spec
A blast freezer at −40°C is the hardest place in the building to keep a network alive. Cameras need housings rated for the room with anti-fog, or the first door cycle blinds them. Standard access points do not fail on the cold itself — they fail on the condensation that follows it.
The pattern that holds is a heated PoE enclosure, where one PoE run powers the access point and its heater together. That matters more than it sounds: insulated panel walls make AC runs expensive, and every new penetration is another hit to the thermal envelope you paid to build. One cable instead of two is a structural decision, not a convenience.
The same approach carries into cold storage and distribution warehouses — dedicated heated units in every cold zone, and coverage proven with the racks full rather than on an empty floor.
GPS Sync Is the Difference Between One Building and Five
We were spec'ing a point-to-multipoint link for a property with five separated buildings. The instinct was one base station and five client radios. The right answer was a GPS-synced base station and client radios with PoE passthrough, so adjacent sectors did not trample each other on the same channel.
Without GPS sync each sector's clock drifts, and you get interference between sectors that never shows up in a two-radio bench test — only on a live five-radio site under load. The hardware cost difference is small. The reliability difference is the whole project.
That is the shape of most ag connectivity work. Parcels run hundreds to thousands of acres, trenching to a pump house or a remote cooler rarely pencils, and there is no carrier circuit at the gate. The fix is point-to-point and point-to-multipoint wireless designed for the specific site, not a general-purpose bridge kit bought on spec.
Who Schedules Around a Season Instead of a Fiscal Quarter?
Ag deployment windows are set by climate, not by a steering committee. A partner that has not worked a pack season will schedule straight into one.
Leafy-greens operations run Salinas roughly April through November, then move to Yuma and the Imperial Valley November through April. The technology moves with the production. We plan install and relocation work against both ends of that swing, not against one.
The Salinas area runs roughly 82,000 farmworkers at peak, including about 10,000 H-2A workers. Growers have built 800- to 1,200-bed housing complexes to hold them, and those complexes need networks, cameras, and access control like any other multi-unit property.
New plant commissioning puts the network on the critical path between the general contractor and the equipment integrators. Cabling has to land before equipment sets, and sortation, vision, and scan systems have to be live before the first pack.
Cooler and pack-house cabling, wireless to the scale house and gate, camera coverage over receiving and yard, and bridge links to pump houses and field offices across the parcel.
Washdown-rated infrastructure on the line, segmented networks separating vision and sortation traffic from business IT, and scan-point coverage sized to the traceability program.
Heated PoE enclosures and temperature-rated housings through coolers and blast freezers, plus PoE density for climate, fertigation, and lighting endpoints in greenhouse ranges.
What SRS Networks Deploys for Agriculture
Seven service areas that cover a grower-shipper's estate end to end — from the gatehouse radio to the scan station on the pack line.
Survey. Design. Stage. Deploy. Validate. Support.
The sequence is fixed. The calendar is yours — we build it backward from the pack schedule and commit to the dates in the SOW once the survey is done.
Survey
We walk the ranch, the cooler, and the pack line, run RF surveys through racking and insulated panel, map every washdown and temperature zone, and mark where a penetration is acceptable and where it is not.
Design
Every zone gets its environment rating on paper before anything is ordered — NEMA 4X or IP69K where washdown reaches, heated PoE enclosures in cold rooms, and wireless bridge paths priced against the trenching they replace.
Stage
Switches, access points, cameras, and enclosures are configured, labeled, and pre-staged at our West Coast or East Coast staging facility, then shipped to a named recipient at the site.
Deploy
Install windows are built backward from the pack calendar — off-season, between packs, or into the nightly sanitation window — and phased so no line waits on infrastructure that is mid-install.
Validate
Every run is certification-tested, wireless coverage is verified at operating temperature rather than at room temperature, and the site closes out with as-builts, port maps, and photos.
Support
Nationwide break-fix on the same 48 contiguous states we install in, at P1 4-hour and P2 next-business-day onsite response, with the responding tech holding the as-builts we wrote.
Drop-Ship Is the Most Expensive Shortcut in Ag Deployment
Roughly one in six direct-to-site shipments fails on first attempt — wrong address, locked dock, no signature, nobody at the front told to expect it. Ag makes that worse, not better. A ranch cooler off a county road has no staffed dock, the gate is locked at 3 p.m., and the receiving contact is in a field two miles away.
Every failed receipt is a second truck roll someone pays for. We route gear through our West Coast or East Coast staging facility first — whichever is nearer the rollout — configure it, label it, and ship it to a named recipient. Drop-ship is faster on a single site. Pre-staging wins everywhere past that.
The exception is real: if you are doing one site and your receiving contact answers the dock phone, drop-ship is fine and cheaper. Below five sites the staging overhead does not pay back.
How Is an Ag Deployment Partner Different From a General Low-Voltage Bid?
The line items look similar on a bid sheet. They diverge the first time the sanitation crew turns a hose on the install.
One Ranch, or Every Facility in the Portfolio
The sector is consolidating fast, and every acquisition arrives as a network estate somebody has to standardize. That is the work multi-site deployment exists to do.
One PM, One Standard, One Set of Paperwork
Food-safety and operations leaders do not need another vendor relationship. They need one accountable party who can produce the documentation when an auditor asks for it.
One Project Manager Per Program
A single PM owns the ranch, the cooler, the pack house, and the distribution point — not four coordinators trading email while a harvest window closes.
Nationwide Break-Fix
P1 4-hour and P2 next-business-day onsite response across all 48 contiguous states, dispatched against the same as-builts and port maps we handed you at closeout.
Audit-Ready Documentation
As-builts, port-to-port maps, labeling schedules, certification test results, device inventory with serials, and photos — the paperwork a food-safety auditor asks for on the camera and access-control side.
Dual-Coast Pre-Staging
Gear is configured and labeled at a West Coast or East Coast facility before it ships, so a rural site with no staffed dock never becomes a failed receipt and a second truck roll.
White-Label Available
Crews can arrive in your branding and closeout documents can carry your template. SRS resells no hardware, no software, and no managed service, so there is nothing to pitch your grower after the install.
One Master Agreement
Fixed per-site pricing by site type under one MSA, so a cooler in Yuma and a fresh-cut plant in Salinas are priced the same way and land on one invoice.
When Should a Grower Hire Someone Else?
One cooler in one county needing a handful of drops added? Hire a local low-voltage contractor. Our coordination overhead does not pay back below roughly 25 sites, and a same-county shop beats us on drive time and price. We will say that on the scoping call rather than sell you a program you do not need.
We also do not audit food safety, issue GFSI certificates, or sell traceability software. Your certification body owns the audit and your software vendor owns the lot record. SRS installs and documents the cabling, wireless, cameras, and access control those programs depend on — and stops there.
And we do not program PLCs, tune optical sorters, or service harvest equipment. Your controls integrator and your equipment OEM own that. If a bidder tells you they do all of it, ask which of their techs has actually stood in a −40°C freezer.
The Standards Behind Every Ag Facility We Wire
Food production answers to rules that do not touch ordinary commercial IT — a federal traceability deadline, a retail-driven certification regime, and enclosure ratings that decide whether hardware survives sanitation. These are the published sources our ag installs are built against.
FSMA Food Traceability Rule (21 CFR Part 1, Subpart S)
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Lot-level recordkeeping at every Critical Tracking Event for foods on the Food Traceability List, including fresh-cut leafy greens. FDA extended the compliance date to July 20, 2028.
Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)
The Consumer Goods Forum
The benchmark behind SQF, BRCGS, and FSSC 22000 certification. Its food-defense elements are what turn facility access, visitor records, and camera retention into an infrastructure scope.
NEMA 250 Enclosure Type Ratings
National Electrical Manufacturers Association
The enclosure type definitions behind a NEMA 4X specification — the rating we hold in chemical washdown zones, in 316 stainless where the chemistry demands it.
IEC 60529 Ingress Protection Ratings
International Electrotechnical Commission
The IP rating system referenced when a zone sees high-pressure, high-temperature washdown and IP69K-rated hardware is the only equipment that survives it.
ANSI/TIA-568
Telecommunications Industry Association
The commercial cabling standard every certified run to a scan station, sorter, camera, or dock door is tested against before a site closes out.
BICSI Standards
BICSI
The credentialing and installation practice our leads carry into the field, and the reference our pathway, grounding, and labeling work is built against.
SRS Networks installs and documents to these published standards. Links go to the issuing body so you can verify the requirement yourself - we are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or accredited by any organization listed unless stated elsewhere on this site.
Agriculture Network Terms, Defined
The vocabulary that shows up in a grower-shipper's deployment scope, a food-plant IT handoff, and an FSMA readiness conversation — defined the way it gets used on a live pack line.
- Critical Tracking Event (CTE)
- A point in the supply chain where food is received, transformed, created, or shipped, and where the FDA Food Traceability Rule requires records to be captured. In deployment terms each CTE is a physical station that needs a scanner, usually a label printer, power, and wireless coverage that holds under wash, cold, or traffic.
- Key Data Element (KDE)
- The specific data points that must be recorded at a Critical Tracking Event — traceability lot code, product description, quantity, location, and date, among others. KDEs are what the software stores; the network is what determines whether they get captured at the moment the event happens instead of reconstructed later.
- Food Traceability List (FTL)
- The FDA list of foods subject to the additional recordkeeping requirements of the Food Traceability Rule. Fresh-cut leafy greens are on it, which is why packaged-salad operations treat the July 20, 2028 compliance date as an infrastructure deadline rather than a software one.
- GFSI-recognized certification
- A food-safety certification benchmarked by the Global Food Safety Initiative — SQF, BRCGS, and FSSC 22000 being the common ones. Large retail buyers make it a condition of supply, and its food-defense elements convert directly into infrastructure scope: monitored facility access, visitor records, camera coverage with retention, and protection of sensitive areas.
- NEMA 4X
- An enclosure type rating for protection against windblown dust, splashing and hose-directed water, and corrosion. It is the baseline specification for equipment enclosures in food-plant zones that see chemical washdown, and 316 stainless is the material called for where the sanitation chemistry is aggressive.
- IP69K
- An ingress protection rating for equipment that must survive close-range, high-pressure, high-temperature water jets — the condition created by a sanitation crew with a hot hose. Where washdown reaches at that intensity, IP69K-rated hardware is the only equipment that stays sealed through repeated cycles.
- Heated PoE enclosure
- A powered, insulated housing that keeps an access point or camera above its minimum operating temperature inside a cooler or freezer, drawing both device power and heater power from a single Power over Ethernet run. The single-cable design matters in cold storage because insulated panel walls make AC runs expensive and every additional penetration weakens the thermal envelope.
- Blast freezer
- A rapid-freezing room that commonly operates between −30°C and −40°C to drive product temperature down quickly after processing. Standard commercial network and camera hardware fails there — not usually on the cold itself, but on the condensation that forms every time a door cycles and warm humid air enters.
- Controlled-environment agriculture (CEA)
- Growing under managed climate — greenhouse ranges, indoor vertical farms, and similar facilities where light, temperature, humidity, and nutrient delivery are actively controlled. A multi-acre range can carry hundreds of PoE endpoints, and because the climate-control loop is effectively the crop, an outage measured in hours can cost a growing cycle.
- Fertigation
- Delivering fertilizer through the irrigation system on a controlled schedule, managed by networked controllers and sensors. It is one of the endpoint populations that drives PoE count and switch placement in a greenhouse design, alongside climate sensing, supplemental lighting, and cameras.
- Optical sorter
- Inline equipment that inspects product with cameras and lasers at high speed and ejects defects or foreign material. Sortation and vision traffic is latency-sensitive and high-volume, which is why it belongs on a segmented, deterministic network path rather than sharing a broadcast domain with business IT.
- Point-to-multipoint (P2MP) wireless
- A wireless topology where one base station serves several client radios at separated buildings — the standard fix for pump houses, remote coolers, gatehouses, and field offices on parcels where trenching does not pencil. GPS synchronization on the base station keeps adjacent sectors from interfering with each other on the same channel, which is the difference between a link that works at one building and one that works at five.
Agriculture Deployment FAQs
What IT directors at grower-shippers, plant engineering managers at fresh-cut processors, and integrator program managers ask us most before signing a deployment SOW.
Scope an Agriculture Deployment
Before the Season Turns.
Send us your facility list, the zones that see washdown or freeze, and the weeks you can give us. We will come back with a per-zone rating, a phased schedule, and a per-site number — or tell you to hire locally if that is the honest answer.
Serving grower-shippers, fresh-cut processors, food manufacturers, cold-chain operators, and controlled-environment growers across all 48 contiguous states. See deployment case studies.