Are you looking to start a cold storage business? Do you want to know more about how you can begin a cold storage business in India in 2022? In this article, we will talk about everything you should know to start a cold storage business. Let’s read on to find out.
Table of Contents
What is a Cold Storage Business?
A cold storage business is similar to a facility business. It refers to holding a facility to keep, store, and preserve fruits, vegetables, and poultry and keep them safe, secure, and hygienic. A cold storage business helps maintain items of produce for a more extended period. This is mainly done to send the products to regions they are not available in or hold the products for international trade purposes. The cold storage market in India is diverse, and there are multiple types of cold storage facilities, i.e. different types of cold storage businesses.
One can fairly classify a cold storage business into three types, which include,
- A cold storage facility that preserves fruits and vegetables
- A cold storage facility that helps preserve all kinds of poultry
- A cold storage facility to preserve alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.
However, there are different kinds of cold storage facilities in India: industrial freezers, commercial refrigerators, and other modular freezing rooms.
Over the years, we have become aware that metric tons of food waste and meat waste is generated every day in India. Due to the increasing population and growing demands of international trade, there is a driving demand for fresh fruits and vegetables. However, due to a lack of cold storage businesses and cold storage facilities around the country, most fresh produce of fruits and vegetables is wasted. Hence, starting a small cold storage business and setting up your own cold storage facility will help solve the issue of wastage and drive a massive amount of profits to your cold storage business.
What Are The Benefits of Starting A Cold Storage Business?
As we are analysing the importance of the cold storage business, we must also look at the benefits of starting a cold storage business. As we mentioned earlier, a cold storage business helps avoid the wastage of fruits, vegetables and other fresh produce. In addition to that, the other significant benefits of starting a cold storage business in a minimum investment are as follow;
- It helps increase the shelf life of fresh goods such as fruits and vegetables.
- It helps maintain the demand for packaged, tinned, canned and processed foods.
- It ensures that off-season products are made available to consumers at fair prices.
- It helps preserve medicines, vaccines, injections and even organs in case of any organ transplant treatments.
How To Start Cold Storage Business?
If you are an entrepreneur and want to get started with a cold storage business, here’s what you need to know. Let’s take a look at the following steps to create a cold storage business in India.
Deciding Your Location
Compared to other businesses, the concept of location plays a significant role in the cold storage business. It is essential to ensure that your cold storage business is situated in a location close to farms, poultry markets or even consumer centres. An entrepreneur with a cold storage business must also decide the space of the cold storage venture and ensure that it acts as a cold storage unit that is spacious enough with all safety and hygienic conditions.
Machinery and Equipment
The most crucial aspect of running a cold storage business is to ensure that you have all the necessary tools and equipment to run the cold storage business. Since a cold storage facility will always hold heavy produce which could weigh tonnes together, you must ensure that you have all the required equipment freezers, heavy-duty refrigerators, mobile freezers, i.e. freezer boxes, etc in your cold storage facility. In addition, you must ensure that your cold storage facility has a constant temperature both internally and externally so that the products kept inside the cold storage room are preserved in a safe and hygienic manner. You must also ensure that electricity facilities are available 24/7 inside the cold storage unit without interruption.
Cleanliness and Maintenance
A cold storage business needs to ensure that you maintain a clean environment in your cold storage facility. You must ensure that you or your staff constantly maintain the temperature levels inside and outside the unit. You must also ensure that all the trays, bins and shelves of your cold storage business are maintained according to the safety and hygiene protocols.
Financing
Unlike other businesses, cold storage business requires a higher level of investment initially. Most entrepreneurs might find it difficult to gather such massive loans. Therefore, to make financing easier for cold storage business entrepreneurs, most banks and other small and large financial institutions provide financial aid and assistance to ensure that they get started with their cold storage business. Several private lenders too provide you with loans based on mortgages or pledges. Hence, you no longer have to worry about your cold storage business funds.
Takeaway
As we mentioned earlier, a cold storage business undoubtedly requires a higher level of investment in the initial stage. Since the nature of a cold storage business is similar to any heavy-duty business, the investments are pretty high. These higher investments are a testament that the cold storage business sector also has higher profits. The increasing profits and rising demand can be turned into opportunities to make your cold storage business a successful one.
Looking for more business ideas? Read our article “How To Start A Petrol Pump Business In India” to know more.
Related Links
