APM Terminals of Denmark, part of AP Moller–Maersk Group, has forayed into cold storage by setting up a facility at Ponneri on the city outskirts to store perishable goods such as fruits, vegetables, meat, fish and pharma products.

Globally, it is the third cold storage facility to be set up by APM Terminals after the ones in Chile in South America and Cape Town in South Africa, said Ajit Venkataraman, Managing Director, APM Terminals Inland Services, South Asia.

“We have brought lot of knowledge from the two global centres to set up the Ponneri facility,” he told Business Line .

Market share

In India, Maersk Line, also part of the AP Moller–Maersk Group, has nearly 30 per cent market share in reefer containers, he said without giving an absolute number. “We will ensure reliable and stable transport of cargo, including goods such as fish, fruits, medicines, and speciality chemicals that require strict temperature control throughout supply chain,” he said.

Spread over 10,000 sq m, the cold storage facility at Ponneri, which is integrated with APM Terminals’ container freight station (CFS), offers Customs clearance facilitation. It has proximity to ports of Chennai, Kamarajar at Ennore, Kattupalli and Krishnapatnam, he said.

Integrated facilities

The facility will provide refrigerated container plug-in facilities for cold warehousing with services ranging from Customs examination and clearance under controlled temperature, value-added services like palletisation and packaging, on-wheel customs seal verification, and bonded cargo movement to different seaports and airports.

The services are available for both domestic and international import/export customers, he said, without giving investment in the facility. “We will offer clients an integrated cold storage solution right from the time cargo is offloaded from the ship to the consumption centre. We will be able to now reduce a couple of links in the logistics,” he said.

Advantages

At present, if a client is importing apples by reefer containers through Chennai port, the box is offloaded onto a truck, which may or may not have a refrigerated container plug-in facility. If there is no plug-in, temperature inside the box could reduce drastically and affect the quality of apples that go to consumption markets like Koyambedu.

At the consumption centre, the entire lot of apples is offloaded and sold with the price reducing as days progress due to decline in the fruit’s freshness.

However, by using the cold storage at Ponneri, the client can offload the entire consignment, store the fruits at the facility and supply to the market on demand. By doing so, the client is able to maintain fruit’s freshness and also increase shelf-life. He can also take products directly to the consumption centre for which the company has tied up with various truckers who have vehicles with plug-ins, he said.

Venkataraman said Chennai port is a major gateway (for both export and import) for perishable and pharma products, and is close to consumption centres such as Coimbatore and Hyderabad. Of the 1.5 million twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs) handled at Chennai port, nearly 2 per cent is reefer containers, he said.

Other ports

Slowly, Kamarajar and Kattupalli ports will also handle large volume of reefer containers, and the company is gearing up to handle that volume. “Clients wanted it as they want to adhere to global standards,” he said when asked for reasons to set up the facility now.

In future, the company would look at the possibility of opening similar facilities in other centres, including Nhava Sheva.

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