Α.P. Moller–Maersk broke ground for its upcoming Cold Store facility at Mehsana, Gujarat, in the western part of India.
Being built exclusively for HyFun Foods, the brand-new facility will offer temperature-controlled storage solutions for perishable frozen processed food items.
Frozen food items need high quality, unbroken cold chain logistics solutions to preserve their integrity, according to Vikash Agarwal, managing director at Maersk South Asia, who said that “our new, state-of-the-art facility at Mehsana will be equipped with the highest standards of temperature compliance, with customised racking system to suit customer’s exact requirements, and modern technology to ensure top-notch operational accuracy.”
Maersk’s new Cold Store facility will be constructed close to the customer’s manufacturing facility and will serve as the mother Cold Store facility. The 14,700-pallet position facility will be built at the Fanidhar Mega Food Park and will be one of India’s largest single-shed cold stores. The large facility will help the customer store all the cargo in a single facility instead of multiple smaller facilities before dispatch.
Maersk’s existing integrated cold chain solution includes landside transportation to the port by road and rail, coordination at the port, customs clearances and ocean transportation for all export cargo.
The Danish transportation company also provides their customers with Captain Peter solution, a Remote Container Management system, that provides full visibility to the customer during cold chain transportation. It monitors temperature and other critical elements necessary to ensure integrity of cold chain logistics at the fingertip for the customer.
“Food security and quality are our top-most priority for ultimate customer satisfaction. To be able to deliver on those, we were looking at redesigning our supply chain model in a way where an unbroken cold chain becomes the backbone of how we move our processed food. Maersk’s single-window solution for the entire cold chain logistics strengthened by the brand new cold store facility simplifies supply chains for us,” commented Kamlesh Karamchandani, director of Sales & Marketing at HyFun Foods.
The facility will be equipped with modern warehouse management systems and will provide real-time visibility to the customer on inventory developments to let the customer make informed decisions on inventory management. The facility will adhere to the highest safety standards as well such as a human-friendly staging area and a robust fire detection and firefighting system.
Maersk will invest in solar energy to power the facility in a bid to ensure that the logistics solutions offered are in line with the decarbonising targets set up by the company for NetZero by 2040. Green Building requirements like rain harvesting, STP, and zero discharge are also a part of the construction and operations plan.
The facility will be built with world class design and engineering parameters adhering to all the compliance and quality requirements.
