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Efficient and Sustainable Cold Chain will not only reduce food loss but also help India achieve the Sustainable Development Goals
Dec 16, 2021

CII’s Food and Agriculture Center of Excellence (FACE) organised a Special Plenary Session focusing on System interventions and adoption of post-harvest management for a robust agri supply chain on December 16, 2021. The Special Plenary was followed by the 6th CII Cold Chain Awards.

Addressing the Plenary Session, Mr. Shri Amrit Lal Meena, Special Secretary – Logistics, Ministry of Commerce and Industry mentioned ‘A well-developed sustainable cold chain network will help in the reduction of wastage, improve value addition, promote crop diversification, ensure better return to the farmers, and also address critical issues of food security and food inflation’.

Supplementing his views, Mr. B. Thiagarajan, Managing Director, Blue Star Limited mentioned ‘Ensuring delivery through Multi-modal logistics is important to strengthen the post-harvest management across all the touch points of supply chain.’

An effective cold supply chain will also have a direct impact on the economy. Mr. P. Ravichandran, Chairman, CII Task Force on Post-Harvest & Logistics; and President, Danfoss Industries Private Limited, said that ‘Refrigerated supply-chain logistics is critical towards achieving sustainable development goals of clean climate and is a key enabler for achieving the 5 trillion-dollar economy’.

Towards ensuring an effective and viable cold chain, it is imperative to keep pace with the necessary infrastructure development, commodity specific protocols development, promoting technological innovations, dovetailing of various schemes, alignment between the various ministries for financial outlay and business model restructuring.

To address the above and to create a seamless cold chain logistics, an industry led Cold Chain Logistics Resource Center (CCLRC) is set up under CII’s food and agriculture Center of Excellence. The CCLRC is supported by international Agencies such as GIZ and UNEP and aligned to international priorities such as the Sustainable Development Goals, Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, etc.

Addressing the Plenary, Dr. Antje C. Berger, Counsellor, Climate and Environment, Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in India, mentioned that the ‘German government is committed to support the mitigation of environmental risk by providing resources for capacity development and investment which will include exchange of sustainable best practices in logistics and cold chain technology’.

The day saw the launch of Technical Specification Documents for Cold Chain Infrastructure and Commodity Specific Post-Harvest Protocols, developed under the aegis of the CCLRC. All documents are available as open access on the CCLRC website and can be leveraged by new entrants and current operators.

Going forward, the CCLRC will continue working towards promoting green technologies, piloting community cooling solutions and build the capacity of the sector in India.

Mentioning the importance of sustainability, Ms. Lily Riahi, Coordinator, Cool Coalition, Energy and Climate Branch, UNEP, mentioned that ‘Cool Coalition is working towards developing sustainable business models like community cooling at village level to impact food loss, environmental sustainability and energy efficiency’.

The day ended with the announcement of the winners of the CII Cold Chain Awards 2021. The Award ceremony was a significant forum to recognize the outstanding performers in the categories of Cold Storage, Integrated Supply Chain solutions, Packhouse, Innovations and FPOs in Cold Chain.

This year, the jury for the awards was Chaired by Dr. Ashok Dalwai, Chief executive Officer, National Rainfed area Authority, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer’s Welfare and Co-chaired by Mr. Pawanexh Kohli, Former Chief Executive Officer and Chief Advisor, National Centre for Cold Chain Development.  Other members of the Jury were, Mr. Rajesh Subramaniam, Managing Director, IDMC Limited; Mr. S.K. Sharma, Managing Director, Global Agrisystem Private Ltd; Mr. B. Thiagarajan, Managing Director, Blue Star Ltd; Dr. Satish Kumar, President & Executive Director, AEEE; Prof. M. P. Maiya, Prof. Mech. Engineering, IIT Madras

The Award for Outstanding performance in Cold Storage was won by APM Terminal India Pvt Ltd, Chennai Unit for world class infrastructure and well-defined processes and operations the unit stand apart.

The Award for Outstanding performance in Integrated Supply Chain Solution was won by Cold Man Warehousing and Distribution (Sricity Unit)

The award for Outstanding performance in Packhouse was won by Magnus Farm Fresh LLP (Nashik) for their well-defined PHM processes, automated Systems and clean packing lines.

Other winners of Significant Achievement included

Aimijay Agri Fresh LLP for the Cold Storage Category

Adani Agri Fresh for the Integrated Supply Chain Solution category

SK Cold Storage for the Packhouse category

To encourage the most important segment of agri supply chain, this year CII introduced the Farmer Producer Organisations (FPO) as a segment for the awards.

Tamil Nadu Banana Producer Company won the Award for Outstanding performance among the FPOs.

The FPOs recognised for significant achievement included:

Vizhuthugal Agricultural Farmers Producer Company

Hunagunda Horticulture FPCL

Shri Amaranarayana Horticulture Farmer producer Company Limited

The Amrita Dhara Milk Producer Marketing Cooperative Society Ltd

Gaukaran Farmers Producer Co Ltd

The award and recognition have enabled innovation & integration in the supply chain and thus there is a substantial interest towards these awards which is growing year on year.

16 December 2021

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