Fruit
importers to Chennai Port have bonanza with APM terminal setting up a major
cold storage facility at Ponnery about fifteen kilometers away from the port.
The facility was declared open last week. It could store perishable goods like
fruits, vegetrables, meat, fish and pharma products.
Spread
over ten thousand square meters the cold storage facility at Ponnery in North
Chennai offers customs clearance facilitation. It has proximity to ports like
Chennai, Ennore, Katupalli and krishnapatnam.
The
facility created by APM terminal of Denmark part of the shipping line Maersk
group will provide refrigerated container plug in facilities for cold warehousing with services ranging from customs
examination and clearance under controlled temperature, value added services
like pelletisation and packaging, on wheel customs seal verification and bonded
cargo movement in different seaports and airports.
The
services are available to both domestic and international import and export customers.
The client will be offered an integrated cold storage solution right from the
time the consignment is offloaded from the ship to the consumption centre,
At
present apple importers from Australia offload their consignment into vehicles
at the Chennai port which may not have a refrigerated container plug in
facility. This could affect the quality of apples as and when it reaches
consumption centers in various parts of the city including its wholesale
market.
M-1The
prices of apples get reduced as the days progress since the quality deteriotes
with out cold storage.
When
the importers use the Ponnery cold storage facility, the importer could offload
the consignment and store them there. They could lift the stocks depending on
the requirement of the market. The shelf life of the fruits get a fabulous increase . The importers can also
take the products to various consumption centers in Tamil Nadu and neighboring
states for which arrangement s have been made with truckers who have vehicles
with plug in facility.
This
is the third Cold Storage facility the APM Terminal has set up near Chennai the
other two being one in Chile in South America and Cape Town in South Africa. It
is planning to set up one at Nhava Sheva port.
We
will ensure reliable and stable transport of cargo including fruits fish
vegetable and speciality chemicals that require strict temperature controls
throughout the supply chain said a spokesman of the terminal.
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