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August 2016
INDUSTRY » NZ Cold Storage Association
Business North
Growing demand for cold storage Karen Phelps The demand for cold storage services is increasing in New Zealand as export industries such as kiwifruit continue to boom, says Jack Bills, executive officer of the New Zealand Cold Store Association. “Over the last decade the reliance on meat and dairy has been boosted by the ever increasing volumes of fruit, vegetables, kiwifruit and seafood. These volumes are becoming increasingly significant and projections over the next five years will place a huge demand on the available cold storage space,” he says. According to the New Zealand Cold Store Association, New Zealand currently exports to over 140 countries. Jack says that 95% of New Zealand’s milk is exported and despite the downturn in prices this has not affected volumes. New Zealand is also one of the world’s largest cheese exporters and 90% of New Zealand seafood is exported. Although livestock numbers are down on 2015 approximately 90% of sheep and lamb and 80% of beef produced each year is exported, he says. The kiwifruit and apple industries in particular are seeing huge export demand, says Jack. “Increasingly the world is looking for the quality of fruit and vegetables that New Zealand produces and the volume of exports continue to increase annually. Despite the threat of PSA, which nearly wiped out the kiwifruit industry, the kiwifruit volumes have recovered mainly through the planting of the gold variety, which is now predicted to reach 60 million trays by 2019. The original target of reaching $1 billion for apple exports by 2022 now looks like it will be achieved by 2020.” Because of the large volumes of food produced that require controlled temperature storage New Zealand’s range of cold stores has a high level of
Latest news: delegates listen in at the recent 84th annual confernce of the NZ Cold Storage Association. expertise in the area of refrigeration, says Jack who believes cold stores will continue to be a key factor in New Zealand’s future agricultural success. Changes in the industry have seen a move to mergers over the past decade: “But even though the numbers of companies registered as a cold store has declined the amount
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of cold storage space is continually increasing as larger cold stores are being built and the big players in the industry seek to increase space by buying out the smaller cold stores. “With exports trending upwards the cold store industry will need to continue to increase to keep up with demand,” he says.
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Jack says that cold stores are generally located close to shipping ports and transport hubs or associated with primary processing sites and that there is high competitiveness in the cold storage sector.
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