Share

Cold chain management concepts.

Author(s) : MAITRA S.

Type of article: Article

Summary

Cold chains are essential for extending the shelf life, period of marketing, avoiding over-capacity, reducing transport bottlenecks during peak periods of production and maintenance of the quality of produce. The development of cold chain industry has an important role to play in reducing the wastage of perishable commodities and thus providing remunerative prices to growers. Also, it acts as the backbone of pharmaceutical industry and helps to maintain the efficacy of drugs throughout the supply chain by providing temperature controlled environment to sensitive pharmaceutical products. With the growth in the domestic manufacturing and retail segments, the demand for efficient warehouse management service has increased. Despite the growing demand, warehousing continues to see little investment. Current spending on organized warehousing in India constitutes 9 percent of total logistics spending, as against 25 percent in the US. According to World Bank’s 2014 Logistics Performance Indicator, India is ranked 54th and is behind countries such as Japan, the United States, Germany and China. Logistics costs account for around 6-10 percent of average retail prices in India as against the global average of 4-5 percent. Therefore, there is a clear scope to improve margins by 3-5 percent by improving the efficiency of the supply chain and logistics processes. Developing an integrated supply chain, including cold chain, can save up to Rs.300 billion annually and at the same time reduce the wastage of perishable horticulture produce. It is worth noting that prices of vegetables, fruits, milk and eggs, meat and fish have been rising fast inspite of the fact that India is one of the highest producers of these commodities. This is due to inadequate supply chain and logistics infrastructure and management.

Available documents

Format PDF

Pages: 18-21

Available

  • Public price

    20 €

  • Member price*

    15 €

* Best rate depending on membership category (see the detailed benefits of individual and corporate memberships).

Details

  • Original title: Cold chain management concepts.
  • Record ID : 30021666
  • Languages: English
  • Subject: General information
  • Source: Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Journal, Cold Chain - vol. 7 - n. 4
  • Publication date: 2016/07

Links


See other articles in this issue (2)
See the source

Indexing