Global cold chain market development and demand forecast to 2020
06/08/2015
Today, the cold chain is a crucial logistic system as it enhances food safety, reduces food loss, and retains features, longevity and freshness of the products.
It consists on refrigerated storage, pre-cooling facilities, packaging, information management systems and refrigerated transport. On the basis of type of cold chain, the market can be categorized as refrigerated transport and refrigerated storage. In particular for food and beverages, cold chain market can be segmented as bakery and confectionery, fish, meat and seafood, dairy and frozen foods, and fruits and vegetables.
The demand of fresh food are growing thanks to online shopping in the past few years, so the increase of cold chain product was a consequence. Also, the technical advancements in reefer containers and refrigeration technique are supporting the growth of these types of products and the circulation of fresh food worldwide. Various international organizations and Research Centers are contributing to develop the cold chain also in emerging countries, above all for food storage system and food waste minimization.
What does retain the future for the cold chain market?
In this scenario, surging demand of fresh and frozen food will be one of the major opportunities in the cold chain market. Nevertheless, there are some factor that are still restraining its growth, in particular the infrastructure support in emerging markets, the rising energy, infrastructure and maintenance costs.
Taking a look to international markets, we see the development of the cold chain not only in the USA (which had the largest cold chain market in 2014) , but also in the emerging countries like India, Asia Pacific countries and China. The e-commerce and food safety regulations introduced by government of China are resulting in increased demand of cold chain market in the country, so that US cold chain service providers have recently invested in cold chain infrastructure.
Today, new food preservation techniques are fundamental to maintain all original physical properties, particle integrity and all good tastes of food. For this reason, the most modern food traders are investing more and more in food technology and cold chain market as one of the most natural preservation technique.
