Hello and welcome once again to Cooling India.
India is a leading producer of milk and second-largest producer of fruits and vegetables in the world. However, more than 15-16 per cent of this produced fruits and vegetables goes waste due to lack of adequate and proper cold storage and cold supply chain facilities.
Today, India has around 7,500 cold storages with installed capacity of over 40 million tonnes. According to a government estimate published in 2017, nearly 75 per cent of the total cold storage capacity in India is used for the purpose of storage of horticulture crops including potato. Moreover, 95 per cent of cold storages in the country were owned by private sector, 3 per cent by cooperatives and only 2 per cent are under Public Sector Undertakings. This depicts the poor state of cold storage infrastructure in India.
However, in the recent past, laying emphasis on improving cold chain infrastructure, the government has made an investment of over $1 billion during 2014-19 in the food processing sector, double from investment made between 2004 and 2014. According to Crisil Research, the Indian cold storage chain market is expected to log a CAGR of 13-15 per cent over the five years through fiscal 2023, from around Rs. 27,900 crore in fiscal 2018.
Besides, on 23rd October last year, Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA) has also approved the setting up of a dedicated Fisheries and Aquaculture Infrastructure Development Fund (FIDF) worth Rs. 7,522 crore to fill the large infrastructure gaps in fisheries sector in the country through developing infrastructure projects that include cold storages.
In August, we will bring you a special issue on food industry HVACR wherein we’ll discuss on the changing face of food industry highlighting the transformation in terms of HVACR product innovations and disruptions. We invite you to be a part of this upcoming issue.
Please write to me at pravita@charypublications.in.
Pravita Iyer
Publisher & Director
