Refrigerated warehouse capacity and urban development

Among other data, the 2012 IARW Global Cold Storage Capacity Report focuses on the relationship between refrigerated warehouse capacities and urban population levels.
Among other data, the 2012 IARW Global Cold Storage Capacity Report focuses on the relationship between refrigerated warehouse capacity and other factors such as national income and urban population levels, or the connections between foreign trade and refrigerated warehouse capacity levels.

The Netherlands continues to have the largest ratio of cold storage capacity to urban population at 1.14 m3 per capita in 2012. It is part of a group of countries which have over 0.30 m3 of refrigerated warehouse space per resident, which also includes Ireland, Denmark, Great Britain, the United States, Germany, Norway, Uruguay and Australia. All these countries are significantly involved in foreign trade in food products, which explains their relatively high refrigerated warehouse capacities.

The group categorized as mid-level in terms of cold storage market penetration includes three of the four emerging market nations: Russia, India and China, but also countries such as Canada, France and several other European markets. Their capacities per resident range from 0.10 to 0.30 m3.  There are important distinctions among these country markets, most importantly in terms of urbanization rates: the urban population in China is only 45%, while urbanization in other countries of the section is in the range of 70-80%. However, there is clearly greater potential for urbanization trends in the future to boost refrigerated warehousing in China than in Western countries with stable urbanization rates.

The lowest level of refrigerated warehouse development is among countries with fewer than 0.07 m3 per urban resident such as Ethiopia, Indonesia, Yemen, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Peru and Colombia. Both Peru and Colombia are, along with Brazil, fast-growing markets for refrigerated warehousing.

2012 IARW Global Cold Storage Capacity Report