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Retail boom boosts cold chain
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Saturday, 17 February, 2007, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Bosky Christopher
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Dilip Revankar,managing director, Ecofresh Cold Storage & Warehousing Pvt Ltd, spoke to Bosky Christopher of Food & Beverage News about the concerns of the cold chain industry and how it can be addressed. Excerpts:
Tell us in brief about Ecofresh.
Ecofresh Cold Storage and Warehousing Pvt Ltd is a state-of-the-art cold storage and deep freeze facility capable of supporting storage needs of the perishable food industry. We provide highly reliable and cost effective refrigerated storage intended to combat the susceptibility of the food industry to the variation in market demand,perishability and fluctuating market rate.
Located at Kelawade, 25 km from Pune on the Pune-Bangalore highway, its 1700 MT capacity can support a wide spectrum of perishable food products. It is the one of the few cold storages in the country incorporating the latest technology PUF panels for insulation.
What are the concerns of the industry?
Being a refrigerated facility, we are heavily dependent on power. However, power supply is not continuous. Recently the MSED announced an additional day of load-shedding. We now get power for only 5 days in a week. In the absence of power we have to run our plant on the diesel generator, which substantially increases the cost of operations.
The other issue is availability of trained operators. The food processing industry has grown rapidly; however the industry is short in supply of trained operators required to run the plants. Most of the processing and storage units are located in the rural areas where trained operators are not easily available. There needs to be a focus on setting up training institutes to impart technical training especially to the youth in the rural areas.
There are several issues like these that affect the food industry. As an emerging, but yet infant sector, we require the government's support in dealing with these issues.
How can the government address these issues?
The government has identified the food industry as the next growth sector. It has responded well by providing several subsidies and benefits. However, what the government needs to focus on is the planning and implementation at ground level. The process of receiving subsidies and benefits is very time consuming and takes a lot of effort. The government should work on making this process less bureaucratic. They could provide financial incentives in different forms like tax breaks that could be implemented with less effort. The methods of calculating the subsidy also need to be revised.
Requirement of licenses is another issue. As the food industry is directly linked to the health of the people, several licenses are required to operate in this industry. However it is not very clear what sector requires which license. Moreover there are several separate licensing agencies and each has their own set of requirement. Streamlining the licensing process is a must to reduce the burden on the industry.
The other areas where we need the government's help is on continuous supply of power, setting up training institutes in the rural areas, removal of industry unfriendly taxes like octroi (specifically for benefit of the cold chain industry). The industry will be more than willing to participate with the government in finding solutions to these problems.
Could you please highlight some of the key emerging trends, both in India as well as globally?
Foreign players require added services such as import facility, customs bonded warehousing, distribution and so on. Being able to provide these services will be a plus when working with foreign players.
Operating methods will need to be modified to suit the requirements of the foreign players. Most of the produce that comes into the country is in palletised form. Thus, pallet handling systems such as fork lift trucks, stackers, etc will be required. Tracking and identification systems such as bar codes and RFID will also become necessary. Hourly computerised reporting on temperature, humidity and condition of the produce will become a must.
Foreign players are very excited about the Indian market and are trying hard to get a piece of the action. Providing them the required services will make their experience a pleasant one.
What factors would you like to attribute towards this commendable growth?
When a product is produced by the manufacturer and until it reaches the end customer it has to be handled in controlled temperature i.e. the cold chain should not break. Today in our country, we have mostly stand-alone cold storages and independent refrigerated transportation providers. This creates several possibilities for a break in the cold chain. There are very few businesses who have successfully integrated these two pieces of the cold chain. In the future with increased competition in the cold chain industry and the pressure to provide an uninterrupted cold chain there will be a push towards integrating these two pieces.
The food retail sector is seeing a major growth. These retail stores are located in densely populated areas and have a very small storage facility. Storage and replenishment of stock on a daily basis will be another area that the cold chain industry will need to develop.
Features
.Latest technology PUF Panels: The plant has been constructed using the latest technology PUF panels, which improves energy efficiency and drastically reduces heat loss. This construction also creates a clean and hygienic environment for storage. Ecofresh is one of the few plants in India to adopt this state-of-the-art, environment-friendly technology.
.Strategic locations: We are strategically located on the Mumbai - Bangalore highway, 25 km south of Pune. The entire highway is a 4-lane road and thus is very easy for movement of container trucks in and out of our Cold Storage. Our highway touch location provides easy access to Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Kolhapur, Satara and Belgaum.
.Generator backup of 125 KVA capacity for uninterrupted power supply.
.Digital readouts: Temperature and humidity levels are constantly monitored using digital readouts. These readouts are located at strategic locations throughout the plant ensuring the operational staff can monitor the readings wherever they are in the plant.
.24-hour operations: Loading-unloading and plant operational staff is present at the facility round the clock.
.Special product care: We have installed special systems such as humidifiers to ensure moisture content and exhaust systems to remove CO2 and other harmful gases. Our staff is also trained in individual product requirement such as periodic rotation, stack height, gap to ensure free flow of air, etc.
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