International.
The Global Cold Chain Alliance's (GCCA) Global Cold Storage Capacity Report 2016 showed that cold storage capacity has seen steady growth since 2014, the last time the survey was conducted.
According to the report, total capacity was 600 million cubic meters in 2016, an increase of 8.6% since 2014. The data also revealed that much of the increase in refrigerated storage space came from new construction in emerging markets.
"It's exciting to see such strong growth and new construction around the world," said Corey Rosenbusch, President and CEO of GCCA. "We have been watching the shift in capacity as a product of middle-class growth in emerging markets like China and India, even as consolidation occurs in other developed markets."
Construction also occurred in markets that previously had little cold storage capacity, namely Uzbekistan and Turkey. The United States, Mexico and Canada each indicated growth in refrigerated storage capacity since 2014. However, reports from Europe indicated that refrigerated warehouse space declined in 2016 in several countries. Turkey and Britain were exceptions. The expansion in Britain was largely due to the construction of distribution centers for private use by retailers.
Written by Dr. Victoria Salin, a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University, the 30-page report includes analysis on global capacity growth trends, market development indicators, and the characteristics of refrigerated warehouses around the world.
The report features cold storage market data from 52 countries. Over the past two years, approximately 11 million cubic meters of additional refrigerated warehouse capacity have been added to the GCCA database of countries that were first included in 2016. The new countries were South Korea, Peru, Mauritius, Ecuador and Kenya.
"Having tracked trends in refrigerated storage for several years now, we can now establish that the wholesale of large format supermarkets is a leading indicator of storage in almost all countries (India is the exception)," Salin said. "In countries where the rate of expansion of supermarkets exceeds 25% per year, the market penetration of refrigerated warehouses per capita grew by 20% or better. This analysis gives an idea of the consumer and points to countries where refrigerated warehouse capacity has not kept pace with the growing population."
To observe the report you can click here.
