The Future of Food Chains

CUSHMAN & WAKEFIELD

SUPPLY AND STORAGE: RESHAPING FOOD CHAINS

CHANGING THE USE OF COLD STORAGE

The types of goods handled by the cold chain are segmented based in their storage requirements.

As the temperature of goods stores gets lower each sector has a higher energy intensity, thus resulting in a need for greater efficiency to mitigate against losses in refrigerant materials and temperature leakage. The frozen, deep-freeze and ultra-low cold storage environments are therefore those most likely to see significant investment, owed to the greatest potential for savings.

ENERGY INSTENSITY

CHILL/ REFRIGERATOR

0 TO -20°C FROZEN

12 TO 14°C BANANA

2 TO 8°C PHARMACEUTICAL

DEEP FREEZE 0 TO -20°C

ULTRA LOW -40 TO -70°C

2 TO 4°C

Fruits Tropical fruits Vegetables

Wide range of pharmaceutical items and biotech products

Fresh meat Dairy Fruits Vegetables Baked goods Flowers and plants

Frozen meat Frozen bakery Frozen vegetables

Frozen fish / seafood Ice cream Pharmaceuticals & vaccines

Pharmaceuticals & vaccines

Automation and the reduction of human labour will allow cold storage areas to reduce, bringing with it greater storage densities and thus operating efficiencies. As such we expect to see a reduction in building sizes, whilst maintaining growing levels of throughput owed to gains in productivity and automation.

A range of building solutions currently exist within the market, with traditional cold storage usually taking the form of a building built within an existing warehouse often referred to as “box in box”. As the requirement for agile cold storage increases, we anticipate that innovation in the sector is likely to result in a range of new building solutions, allowing space to pivot and serve other product segments and value add services.