REFCOLD India, South Asia’s largest cold chain and refrigeration event, is the blooming destination for innovation in products and services, training and education and business networking for the entire food industry. Over 15,000 decision makers and innovators from retail, food service, processing, production, distribution, logistics, and transportation representing frozen, refrigerated, ambient and fresh operations would attend the convention pertaining to their industry.
This year’s REFCOLD India would take place at Hyderabad, Telangana on November 21-23. The state of Telangana boasts of a robust infrastructure, international airport, four food parks, 146 industrial parks, 27 SEZs and 2 Agri-export zones, thereby, making it the perfect destination to bring the entire sector under a single roof and work towards the common goal.
Over the course of three days at REFCOLD India, exhibition, seminars and workshops will combine to deliver the most valuable and comprehensive business-to-business networking event, serving the perishables industry with opportunities to connect with key buyers that produce, handle, store, transport or are involved in the distribution of perishable products. Two principal highlights of the event are:
• REFCOLD Business Summit – aims to provide great business opportunities to exhibitors to connect with top industry buyers.
• REFCOLD Innovation Hub – platform for exhibitors and partners to showcase their innovations which has power to transform the cold chain and refrigeration industry.
Overview of Indian Market
The cold chain and refrigeration market in India is expected to reach USD 658.59 billion by 2022. The transformation of traditional perishables business through integrated cold chain solutions would have a great impact on the market scenario and overall growth, in a country where 60 per cent of the population is currently employed in agriculture.
Along with a plethora of promises, this sector also comes with certain challenges. Fragmentation of warehouses and third-party logistics delay the operational efficiency, hence, integrated logistics solutions for end to end supply chain becomes imperative. Cold chain network configuration is a science and needs to be handled with care and responsibility. To transform these shortcomings into opportunities, the experts need to realign – right from the space and network modelling, logistics, and valued facilities to match cold chain requirements.
Through efficient operations, one can steer the opportunities in the current market, which are plenty, as the demands are very promising and the expected growth at CAGR of 13-16 per cent provides great momentum for existing and new players.
Key Growth Drivers
• Through cold chain logistics, distribution goes far and wide and in larger volumes, resulting into higher demand and consumption of dairy, meat, poultry and marine foods.
• By 2020, the Indian dairy industry is expected to double to USD 140 bn.
• By 2020, Indian Food and Retail market is projected to touch USD 828.92 bn.
• 100 per cent Foreign Direct Investment allowed in multi-brand retail business of locally sourced processed food.
• Growth in Pharma products
• The projects identified under ports and shipping industry – Sagarmala Programme – is expected to mobilise over 61.6 billion of infrastructure investment.
More Concurrent Events at REFCOLD India
• REFCOLD Emerson Awards Night – The award night hosted by ISHRAE along with Emerson to honour innovative and outstanding energy efficient projects in the cold chain and refrigeration industry.
• Daikin Global Poster Competition – The aim is to provide a platform to national and international students to demonstrate their innovative research.
• REFCOLD Entrepreneur’s Conclave – Creating an ecosystem for entrepreneurship through this conclave by industry experts.
• REFCOLD BIZ QUIZ –Technical and entertaining Business Quiz for HVACR professionals to display their knowledge of technical and business domains.
The cold chain industry has evolved over the years and has played an indispensable role to preserve, extend and ensure the high shelf life of products like fresh agricultural produce, seafood, frozen food, photographic films, chemicals, and pharmaceutical drugs, ultimately boosting the Indian economy. The major driving force behind the growth of cold chain facilities in India is the growth of the end-user industries.
The answer to timely delivery to the user industries including quick service restaurants, pharmaceutical industry, processed food industry and organised retail sector lies in the right product, in the right quantity, condition and price to the right customer at the right place. This is an art, completely dependent on the science of inclusive and accurate planning & decision making.
