We are delegating things to technology as much as we can: Polfrost Aircon

Cold chain has been particularly evolving in the past few years as a sunrise industry in our country.

Cold chain – a sunrise industry and the shift because of Covid 

Everyone is looking at something that can, you know, make their products better, everyone wants to do something that is different than before, and which is better than before. So, how and what is possible, and what has happened to these months, we’ll just look at all of that. So, first of all, post Covid itself has changed so much that we ourselves are living quite differently than we used to before. And these one and a half years have been quite a roller coaster ride for everyone. People working at home, people working from home, people working in the manufacturing sector, people in the logistics sector, everyone’s lives have changed. And I would say it’s not changed for the better. 

So, life has been a mix of going out and being indoors, sometimes forced upon us and sometimes chosen. The basic underlying feeling of uncertainty has led humans to think and rethink life and the way we have lived it until now. And, humans as a race understood the importance of the cold chain as the vaccination gap distribution companies came to the limelight. So there was a point where, you know, all the newspapers had it in them at some point or the other that the Pfizer vaccine is going to need a temperature of minus 70 degree. And, you know, the minus 70 temperature being needed by the Pfizer vaccine is something that raised everyone’s concerns and raised everyone’s eyebrows as to will we be able to manage as a country, and you know, what exactly will be needed to maintain the vaccine at that temperature and water will be able to achieve. 

When these things came to the limelight is when the cold chain industry actually started becoming the hero during the vaccination period as well. 

And that’s where so many people started realising the importance of the cold chain. Cold chain as the elementary industry was realised by many industries, which started mass manufacturing, and also stocking up inventory of the food and pharmaceutical items during the cold chain. So, you know, these shifts, they started to happen. And you know these are the shifts that brought a whole chain to the limelight. And the trends, they started changing quite quickly. 

Now, when we say that trend started changing, what are the trends which actually changed, in order to adapt to the rapidly changing ways of living life, all the industries basically, went through a transformation in the way they were working, which we all have gone through, technology has become more and more intrusive into our lives, I can say, we are now dependent on our phones and apps for everything, basically, even things we were doing physically earlier. And now all of this, you’re not going to the supermarket. 

Cold storages and logistics were also mentioned as a special industry which will be allowed to work because the people were, you know, basically surviving on food and were basically being survived by the logistics industry and cold chain as one of the important parts. Amul is a classic example of that when a crisis hit in the form of Covid. We all must have observed that milk and milk production, which comes from Amul, were always more than what was needed. And you know they were never in shortage. And Amul being Amul, and, being prepared for a crisis, they went into manufacturing of, you know, bakery items; they went into manufacturing of sweets. And all of that increased rapidly because they were prepared to make these products reach the supermarkets directly. And that’s how, if you are always prepared for a crisis, you can make the most out of the crisis. 

And that’s a very important lesson we can learn from these companies who survived the, you know, Covid way of life successfully. 

What is happening to the cold chain? 

We are delegating things to technology as much as we can even, you know, in the cold chain segment or in the cold chain industry. Adapting to the new trends, basically, the work from home masses has moved to online ordering of groceries. Because as we realise we work more from the work from home more, the more we are stuck to our screens, and we don’t even have time to lift a finger. 

If you see the cold chain before, we did not have too much of you know, the ice creams or the dairy products or the meats being, you know, delivered home. And why was that not there, because the need was not today now that the need is there, we have the cold chain industry, mushrooming everywhere and supporting the needs of the logistics industry as well. So the restaurants and supermarkets have started adopting home deliveries, online businesses and mobile apps have made their investments into households with elderly population too, if we see even me mean, the people most at risk, were the population who are not adapted to the technology at all. And they are the ones who are being forced to adapt to this technology because the other ones are at risk. 

And hence, you know, if you don’t have meat getting delivered home or if you don’t have milk getting delivered home or if you don’t have you know ice cream getting delivered, or they basically just can’t live their life. And that’s where opportunity lies and opportunity lies where the businessmen see the opportunity. 

I personally can link it all down to the cold chain. So, you may think I’m crazy when I say that, but actually it’s not. So, you know, adopting so many changes has definitely not been easy for anyone and only the individuals and organisations with high level of agility and adaptability have been successful to make it through these 18 months successfully recording growth. 

Cold chain being one of such industries has been particularly evolving to the past few years as a sunrise industry in our country. And I think the sun finally dawned upon us or it rose upon us I should say, and today, Vikram sir says they have more on the pack houses and blast freezing and all the technologies which are helping us preserve food and that is what we needed and that is what this pandemic has given us. And hence this period of evolving and going through changing times has been the blood of the cooling industry is what we could say. 

Let us look at methods of construction of cold storages and refrigerated trucks that have been evolving over the years. The ways and means are mostly evolved towards being more modular, and the logistics industry is as always looking towards cost optimisation and being flexible to consumer demands. Hence, expansion, relocation and distribution have never been an issue as such, for our industry. 

So to get better and to adapt to new ways of working and to involve and get them you know, with more and more technology into our blood. Apart from being modular, the industry has also started being more energy efficient, more modular, less dependent on the seasonal trends because of the ability to be so fragmented, internet friendly, ever adapting to increasing needs for the storage conditions, and a greater emphasis on processing and exporting of the agri producers also lead the industry to realise that the cold chain is an unmissable aspect of the process. 

Because the more you want to reduce food loss and food wastage, the more you want to depend on. Now what’s the future like? The involvement of the IT industry and the evolution of IoT on a day to day basis have opened multiple avenues for the project industry. The various factors have changed, increasing the difficulty levels of the industry to operate and function has led to disruptions from the tech industry coming in as an aid to boost the operations and achieve scalability. 

Building up the industry, IoT is getting imbibed in every aspect. 

And aggregators for the leasing of warehousing and logistics facilities are the enablers. Of course, I could list out these enablers more and more. 

Future possibilities 

You know the Hub and Spoke models of cold storage and freezing technologies like we spoke are making the hyper local deliveries more and more possible. 

Shared storage spaces with tagging and identification techniques are getting better and better. Block chain technology enabling supply chain transactions are also growing by the day, saving food wastage at farm level being one of the primary needs of the Indian industry is one of the biggest possibilities we have at hand. So, our technology and thermal backup technologies to help remote storage are blast chilling and blast freezing technology being adopted widely today, paving pathways for a better future. The IT industry driving and pushing each industry to achieve more and more is highly looked upon to help the cold chain industry achieve better.