Cold Chain Infrastructure

The term cold storage refers to a refrigerated chamber for storage of perishable commodities such as fruits, vegetables, fish, eggs, meat, dairy products, etc. In these storage structures, the tempera­ture is controlled so that the quality of the stored perishable products does not deteriorate. In cold storage the temperature is maintained in the range of -1 to 10°C and in the freezer zone the tem­perature is at sub-zero level.

Due to inadequate cold storage infrastructure in the country, the post harvest losses of perish­able agricultural products such as fruits and vegetables are to the extent of 33-35 per cent. Cur­rently, the available capacity of cold storage in the country is 9.7 million tonnes (7-6 per cent) as against the fruits and vegetables production of 127 million tonnes in the country. The other users of the cold chain infrastructure are pharmaceutical, processed food products, fast food chains and floriculture products. The roadblocks in the development of cold chain infrastructure in India are:

  • High capital cost in setting up the facility
  • Low returns with longer pay back period
  • High operating cost due to high power tariff
  • High import and excise duties on cold storage equipments.

There is a huge potential for the cold chain as a service industry in India. Immediate measures need to be taken by the government to boost the cold storage industry.

Source: Sople V.V (2013), Logistics Management, Pearson Education India; Third edition.

2 thoughts on “Cold Chain Infrastructure

  1. gralion torile says:

    I do agree with all the ideas you’ve presented in your post. They are really convincing and will certainly work. Still, the posts are too short for starters. Could you please extend them a bit from next time? Thanks for the post.

  2. langlier says:

    It’s really a cool and useful piece of information. I’m glad that you shared this helpful info with us. Please keep us informed like this. Thanks for sharing.

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