How Ontrack Moving® moved Wild Type Foods, a Dogpatch cultivated-seafood lab, off an uneven loading dock and into a destination clean space, working to the facility decontamination protocol.
By Pablo Giordano, Owner, Ontrack Moving® • June 2026 • 8 min read
Wild Type Foods, a San Francisco company that grows salmon from cells, was relocating its working lab a few blocks across Dogpatch, from 790 Tennessee Street to 970 Illinois Street. The short distance was the easy part. The job was moving delicate, high-value lab equipment out of a loading dock that sat on uneven ground and into a destination clean space where Ontrack Moving® had to gown up and work to the facility decontamination protocol.
In short: in 2026, Ontrack Moving® relocated Wild Type Foods' laboratory under a mile, from 790 Tennessee Street to 970 Illinois Street in San Francisco's Dogpatch, over two days with a crew of thirteen and roughly 212 dolly loads into a 5,000 square foot space. Out of the origin building came seven biological safety cabinets, two autoclaves, two incubators, lab refrigeration, twenty-five benchtop devices, and twenty-six lab benches, brought out through a loading dock sitting on uneven ground that required a liftgate truck and a portable ramp to keep the path into the truck level. At the destination, the crew entered a clean space on the lab's terms: decontamination suits, shoe covers, hair covers, and safety glasses, with the soles of their footwear decontaminated on a tacky mat and station at the door before any equipment crossed into the clean area.
The reason a lab like this chose an asset-based carrier over the cheapest bid was accountability, not price. For projects like it, see our laboratory movers and Bay Area commercial movers.
Wild Type Foods grows real salmon from cells, which means its lab is the business. Relocating it from 790 Tennessee Street to 970 Illinois Street kept the company inside Dogpatch, San Francisco's old industrial waterfront district off Third Street, so the haul itself was short. The difficulty sat at the two ends of it.
At the origin, the equipment had to come out through a loading dock that sat on uneven ground. That single detail drove the equipment plan for the whole job. When a dock is not level with the truck bed, a heavy cabinet or an ultra-low freezer has to cross a lip or a slope at the exact moment it is least stable, which is how instruments get racked and floors get gouged. Ontrack Moving® scoped the job for a liftgate truck and a portable ramp so the path from the dock into the truck stayed level under load, because on a lab move level ground is not a convenience, it is the difference between a calibrated instrument arriving in working order and arriving as a repair bill. The origin also needed a parking permit pulled in advance, since Tennessee Street offers no place to simply stage a truck in Dogpatch.
At the destination, the new lab included a clean space, and a clean space does not bend its rules for moving day. Anything and anyone entering it has to meet the facility decontamination protocol, which turns an equipment move into a gowned, controlled entry rather than a roll-it-in-on-a-dolly job. The destination added a second complication that is easy to miss on a floor plan: the load did not have one endpoint. Equipment went into the lab area, and the rest went into two separate storage rooms in the same building, one of which was still being cleared as the move approached. A move with three destinations inside one address is a labeling problem before it is a lifting problem.
The headline items were the biosafety cabinets. A biosafety cabinet is tall, heavy, and built around a calibrated airflow system, so it cannot be tipped, dragged, or knocked around on the way out the door. Ontrack Moving® padded the cabinets, kept them upright and level, and braced them so they would not shift in the truck across the short run between buildings. There were seven of them on the survey. Alongside the cabinets came a Thermo Scientific ultra-low temperature freezer, two autoclaves, two incubators, ten commercial refrigerator and freezer units, and twenty-five benchtop devices, spectrophotometers and centrifuges among them, moved on our instrument transport platforms and each handled for what it was rather than treated as generic freight. Counted together with the twenty-six lab benches that had to travel with them, that is better than seventy pieces of laboratory casework and equipment out of one working lab, which is why the job was scoped across two days with a crew of thirteen instead of squeezed into one. Those platforms roll on elastic polyurethane casters rated to just under 400 pounds, which is a deliberate choice rather than whatever wheel came in the box: polyurethane rolls quietly, absorbs the floor seams and thresholds that a hard wheel would pass straight into a calibrated instrument, and leaves no marks on a finished floor on the way out. An ultra-low freezer is its own problem: it is heavy, it has to stay upright, and the contents are the reason the lab exists. Our guide to moving an ultra-low freezer covers how those units are prepared and staged. The heaviest single item on the job was a pair of stackable ovens weighing about 1,500 pounds together, moved on hydraulic lifts rather than muscled down an uneven dock.
A biosafety cabinet's value is in its certified airflow, and that airflow is checked again after the unit is in its new home. Recertification is performed by the lab's certification vendor, not the moving company. What a careful mover owes the lab is a cabinet that arrives upright, level, and undamaged in its new position, set where the vendor can do that recertification cleanly. Knowing where the mover's job ends and the certifier's begins is part of moving a lab properly.
The part that separates a lab move from an office move happened at the door to the destination clean area. Before any equipment went in, the crew gowned up to the facility protocol: decontamination suits, shoe covers, hair covers, and safety glasses. At the threshold, the soles of their footwear were decontaminated on a tacky mat and a decontamination station, so nothing was tracked in on a boot. The whole point of that routine is to keep out exactly what a moving crew tends to bring with it, the dust and grit of a loading dock and a truck, and to bring the equipment into the clean space without compromising it.
None of that protocol is the mover's to write. The lab sets it. What an experienced lab mover brings is the expectation of it: a crew that arrives ready to gown up and follow the facility's rules rather than asking the lab to relax them so the move can go faster. On this job, the crew worked to Wild Type Foods' clean-space requirements as the lab defined them.
A lab move is scoped in person, not over the phone. Ontrack Moving® walked both buildings to see the real equipment, the real access, and the real protocol, because each of those changes the plan. The uneven dock set the equipment list before it set anything else: seeing that the ground did not meet the truck is what put a liftgate truck and a portable ramp on the job, and neither of those is something a crew can improvise on the morning of a move. The clean space at the destination set the gowning and the sole decontamination, and where the gear could be staged before it crossed the line into the clean area. Seeing the path firsthand is what sets the manpower, the equipment, and the protection a job like this needs, rather than guessing at it from a floor plan.
| Project | Working laboratory relocation |
| Client | Wild Type Foods (San Francisco cultivated-seafood lab) |
| Route | 790 Tennessee Street to 970 Illinois Street, San Francisco (Dogpatch) |
| Distance | Under one mile, intra-city |
| Structure | Two days, crew of thirteen, ~212 dolly loads, 5,000 sq ft destination |
| Key equipment | 7 biological safety cabinets, 2 autoclaves, 2 incubators, ultra-low freezer, 10 commercial refrigerator and freezer units, 25 benchtop devices, 26 lab benches |
| Origin access | Loading dock on uneven ground; liftgate truck and portable ramp required; parking permit pulled |
| Destination protocol | Clean-space decontamination entry |
| Carrier | Ontrack Moving®, asset-based, USDOT #2551548 |
Wild Type Foods did not pick Ontrack Moving® because it was the cheapest quote on the table. It picked an asset-based carrier because the company that walked the lab is the same company that showed up to move it. There was no broker in the middle handing the work to whichever crew was available, and no question of who was accountable for the equipment crossing into the clean space. For a lab whose equipment is its business, that single, unbroken line of accountability is worth more than shaving a few dollars off the estimate. It is the same reason this kind of work belongs with a direct carrier rather than a subcontracted team booked through a broker.
Lab buildings and their facilities managers review a mover's credentials before a crew is allowed in. Ontrack Moving® carried its $10,000,000 Combined Protection Tower for building liability across the project, which is what satisfies a certificate-of-insurance requirement and covers the premises, floors, elevators, and loading areas the crew works in and around at both buildings. The equipment itself is covered separately under standard $0.60 per pound per article cargo liability under federal FMCSA rules, with additional valuation protection available for purchase, which a lab moving high-value cabinets and instruments should weigh deliberately.
| Coverage | What it applies to |
|---|---|
| $10M Combined Protection Tower | Buildings, premises, floors, elevators, docks, and shared loading areas at both Dogpatch buildings; general liability and workers compensation for the work performed. This is what a building names on the COI. |
| $0.60/lb cargo liability | The lab equipment and instruments themselves, per article, under the federal FMCSA minimum. Additional valuation protection available for purchase, and worth weighing on high-value cabinets. |
| DOT Inspection Record Exceeding the National Average | The federal safety record under FMCSA inspection, verifiable under USDOT #2551548. |
Wild Type Foods' lab was moved the few blocks from 790 Tennessee Street to 970 Illinois Street, its biosafety cabinets and refrigeration carried off an uneven loading dock and brought into the new clean space with the crew gowned and decontaminated to the facility protocol. The equipment went in on the lab's terms, handled by a crew that expected the gowning and the sole-decontamination mat rather than being surprised by them. The client was happy enough with the work to tell us so directly.
It is the kind of job that shows what a lab is actually buying when it hires an asset-based carrier: not a truck, but a crew that knows a biosafety cabinet from a filing cabinet, knows where its job ends and the certifier's begins, and knows how to enter a clean space without compromising it. If your organization is planning a laboratory move, a cleanroom or contamination-controlled relocation, or an equipment move into a regulated space, our laboratory moving and San Francisco commercial movers team can scope it with an on-site walkthrough.
Laboratory relocations, cleanroom and contamination-controlled moves, and biosafety equipment across San Francisco and the Bay Area, run by our own in-house crews. Asset-based direct carrier under USDOT #2551548. $10M Combined Protection Tower for building liability.
or call (888) 914-8787
