The 2010 edition of India Cold-chain Expo (ICE), held in New Delhi on November 12-13, highlighted that the India cold chain industry has a bright future, but there is a strong need to adopt modern and state-of-the-art cold chain infrastructure to be supported by suitable policy measures formulated by the government.
“Cold chain as a sector has vast scope. It can act as an engine of growth in agriculture as well as social sectors. Better cold storage equipment and technology will lead to better utilisation of what we grow. Getting financial institutions to invest is a challenge, but we are making efforts to improve this scenario,” said Union Food Processing Secretary Ashok Sinha, who inaugurated the two-day event, along with Bob Hiensch, ambassador of The Netherlands to India, at Ashoka Hotel, Delhi.
The Indian cold chain market is estimated to be worth USD 2.6 billion and is expected to grow to USD 12.4 billion by 2015. The sector can benefit from partnership with other countries. As Hiensch observed, “There exists a huge potential for Indo-Dutch alliance in this sector and both countries can stand to benefit by increased cooperation.”
The expo – organised by Global Cold Chain Alliance (GCCA) – aimed at bringing all stakeholders together so that it can act as a knowledge-sharing platform wherein the latest technologies in the cold chain industry could be discussed threadbare and based on it a policy initiative could be recommended to major government agencies for betterment of the sector.
The role of cold chains and warehouses becomes significant as even though India occupies the second position in the world in the production of fruits and vegetables with total production of 63.5 million tones of fruits and 125.89 million tones of vegetables, which are perishable agricultural produce, annually crops worth more than Rs 70,000 crore rot for want of proper storage and warehousing.
ICE 2010 saw participation from countries such as The Netherlands, France and Belgium. Apart from the foreign participation, leading Indian players in food processing, cold chain, logistics, refrigeration and cold chain equipment, banking and financial service providers also took part in the it.
– IndiaRetailing Bureau
