Cold Chain Industry In India: Present Status And Future Prospects

Cold chain involves the transportation of temperature-sensitive products along a supply chain through thermal and refrigerated packaging methods to protect the integrity of these shipments.

- Sateesh Kulkarni

There are several means in which cold chain products can be transported: refrigerated trucks and railcars; refrigerated cargo ships; and air cargo.

India’s Integrated Cold Chain Industry

India’s cold chain sector is a combination of surface storage and refrigerated transport. The industry has been growing at a CAGR of 20 percent for the last three years. The cold chain market in India was anticipated to reach Rs 624 billion ($13 billion) by 2018, according to 2014 estimates. Cold stores are the major revenue contributors of the Indian cold chain industry.

Currently, India has 6,300 cold storage facilities unevenly spread across the country, with an installed capacity of 30.11 million metric tonne. These are mostly used for storing potatoes. However, the market is gradually getting organized and focus towards multi-purpose cold storages is rising. More than 50 percent of the cold storage facilities in India are currently concentrated in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, while other states still face a challenge with investments from the government and private operators.

Facts

Organised players contribute only ~8– 10 percent of the cold chain industry market 36 percent of these cold storages in India have capacity below 1,000 MT, and 65 percent of India’s cold chain storage capacity is contributed by the states of Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. At the current capacity only less than 11 percent of what is produced can be stored

Government Initiatives