•The firm will construct Cold Solution’s flagship facility in Tatu City Special Economic Zone,Nairobi.
•The 15,000 square metre grade ‘A’ cold storage complex on six acres at Tatu City will be the country’s largest, most advanced and efficient in the region.
Image: COURTESY
Warehouse and logistics service provider–Cold Solutions Kenya Limited has announced plans to invest Sh7.5 billion in the construction of a state-of-the-art temperature-controlled cold storage warehouses.
The facilities will be located in Nairobi and Mombasa.
The flagship facility will be at Tatu City Special Economic Zone,Nairobi. The 15,000 square metre grade ‘A’ cold storage complex on six acres will be the country’s largest, most advanced and efficient in the region.
A typical grade ‘A’ facility is defined as that with high specifications in terms of quality, size (much bigger in scale than typical warehouses), hook height and dock levellers, large lay-down area around the warehouses and specialist facilities such as cold storage.
Cold Solutions Kenya’s facility at Tatu City is expected to be operational in 12 to 18 months.
It has been flexibly designed to cater for numerous temperature ranges from +26 to -40 C and multiple product ranges, from fresh fruit and vegetables, to pharmaceuticals and vaccines, meats and poultry, and frozen foods.
“Cold Solutions’ one-stop-shops are designed to allow businesses to keep track of products in real-time and facilitate transportation across East Africa through temperature-controlled trucks, either within the inner city or to long-haul destinations,” said Jared Irving, Managing Director, ARCH Emerging Markets Partners Limited.
Cold Solutions is a portfolio company of ARCH Cold Chain Solutions East Africa Fund, a private equity fund.
The fund plans to build up to 10 state-of-the-art temperature-controlled cold storage warehouses in the region.
Chris Barron, Kenya Country Head for Rendeavour, Tatu City’s owner and developer, said: “ By providing power, water, waste management, roads and ICT, Tatu City has created an ideal operating environment for businesses entering or expanding in East Africa.”
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that over 40 per cent of food in Sub-Saharan Africa perishes before it reaches a consumer (this is often referred to as food loss).
This can be as high as 60 per cent for fresh produce in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Even though fruit and vegetable production is a fast-growing sector in Kenya, and it bears considerable local and international market potential, the post-harvest losses of horticulture crops are far higher than those of cereal crops.
It is estimated that 40 per cent to 60 per cent of fruits and vegetables produced for consumption are lost along the supply chain.
Due to lack of cold chain solutions in Kenya, most crops are only seasonally available, with price variations between peak harvest and low season reaching up to 500 per cent under normal conditions.