Cold Chain in Agriculture, Fisheries & Allied sectors

1. BISWAJIT MOHANTY
M.F.Sc 1ST YEAR
FISH PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY
COLD CHAIN IN
AGRICULTURE , FISHERIES
& ALLIED SECTORS

2. INTRODUCTION
 Refrigerated foods are one of the fastest
growing sectors of the fishery and food service
industries.
 Continued success relies upon effective
management of the ‘cold chain’, a term used to
describe the series of interdependent operations
in the production, distribution, storage and
retailing of chilled and frozen foods.
 Control and management of the cold
chain is vital to preserve the safety and quality
of refrigerated foods.

3. WHAT IS COLD CHAIN ?
 Cold chain is a temperature controlled
supply chain.
 It is an uninterrupted series of storage and
distribution activities which maintain a
continuous refrigerated storage facility
at a constant temperature.
 It is used to help in extending and ensuring
the shelf life of the perishable products.

5. WHY COLD CHAIN IS
IMPORTANT ?
 Different food processing industries require their
raw materials and finished goods to be transported
under temperature controlled condition.
 This is necessary to preserve their integrity and
quality of the products .
 The implementation of an effective cold chain
minimizes loss of texture and flavour to the product,
and delivers fresh products to the consumer both in
and out of the season.
 Cold chain retain the product quality as well
as nutritional value.

9. ADVANTAGES AND USE OF COLD
CHAIN
 The use of “Cold" handling and storage systems
as an investment to prevent perishable food
losses is widely used in developing countries
and can be highly cost effective for increasing
demands for these foods.
 The Food Processing Ministry is working as
a bridge between farmers and consumers and it
has set up 42 mega food parks and 138 cold
chains in the country.
 This will form a seamless grid from the farmer
to the consumer.

10. CONT…
 The objective of the scheme of Cold Chain, Value
Addition and Preservation Infrastructure is to
provide integrated cold chain and preservation
infrastructure facilities without any break from the
farm gate to the consumer.
 It covers pre-cooling facilities at production sites,
reefer vans, mobile cooling units as well as value
addition centres which includes infrastructural
facilities like Processing, Collection Centres, etc.
for agricultural products, fish and fishery products,
dairy, meat and poultry etc.

11. DIFFERENT TEMPERATURE RANGE
FOR STORAGE PRODUCTS
 Cold chain is basically a temperature
controlled storage & movement of
temperature sensitive products.
 There are different temperature ranges required
for storage & shipment of different products.
 Temperature plays a vital role in the process of
metabolism and detoriation process of the
Perishable food items.

12. CONT…
PRODUCTS FROZEN CHILLED
Pharmaceutical -22 oC (vaccines) 2 oC to 8 oC
Meat &
Poultry
-20 oC 2 oC to 4 oC
Processed Food -18 oC 2 oC to 4 oC
Ice cream -25 oC --
Dairy -- 2 oC to 4 oC
Chocolates -- 16 oC to 18 oC
Retail -18 oC to -22 oC 2 oC to 8 oC

13. PROPERTIES OF COLD CHAIN
 A cold chain for perishable foods is the
uninterrupted handling of the product within a
low temperature environment during the
Post Harvest steps of the value chain including
harvest, collection, packing, processing,
storage, transport and marketing until it
reaches the final consumer.
 An integrated cold chain encompasses the
management of the movement of perishable
food products from the field through entire
Post Harvest chain to the final consumer.

14. CONT…
The Primary segments of an integrated cold chain include
 (1) Packing and cooling fresh food products,
 (2) Food processing (i.e. freezing of certain processed foods,
 (3) Cold storage (short or long term warehousing of chilled or
frozen foods),
 (4) Distribution (cold transport and temporary warehousing
under temperature controlled conditions) and
 (5) Marketing (refrigerated or freezer storage and displays at
wholesale markets, retail markets and foodservice operations)

15. CONT…
 Cold chain logistics is the planning and
management of the interactions and transitions
between above five segments, in order to keep
foods at their optimum temperature for
maintenance of quality, food safety and prevention
of waste and economic losses.
 Speed is often the key to success when handling and
marketing perishable foods using a cold supply
chain

17. PRESENT STATUS OF COLD CHAIN IN
SEAFOOD EXPORTS FROM INDIA
 The fisheries sector has been one of the major
contributors of foreign exchange earnings through
export.
 Over the past few years, safety has become very
topical subject eliciting a great deal of public
concern particularly in the developed countries,
where food safety offences are now dealt at
Government level.
 Once caught, Marine fish food products are
highly perishable. Marine foods for export
typically need to be quickly frozen after initial
processing and kept frozen until purchased by the
consumer.

18. CONT…
 New initiatives have been adopted for developing the
sector to increase yields and ensure a sustained
livelihood for fishermen.
 There has also been an amplified effort to increase
exports to other countries through improvements in
infrastructure facilities like cold storage, that better
address post-harvest management.
 To cope up with the increasing demand for safe food and
to satisfy the needs of health / quality of consumers of the
global seafood market, MPEDA Quality Control
Section has identified and implimented several
programmes which can be addressed via efficient
cold chain solutions across the value chain.

20. COLD CHAIN COMPONENTS
The cold chain components for export value chain
are:-
 Flake Ice/Block Ice (Farm to Factory Gate)
 Block Processing/Blast Freezing/IQF
(Processing and Freezing)
 Freezer Cold Storages (Storage)
 Cold Chain Containers (Logistics and Export).

27. KEY ISSUES IN COLD CHAIN
DEVLOPMENT IN INDIA
 Increse in domestic and export demand.
 Benefits of growth in demand is not passed on adequately to the
farmer.
 Large price gap between the first point of sale and the price at
final retail sale points.
 Underdevloped logistics and losses during transportation of
products.
 Benefits are not passed on to the end customer.
 Tremendous increse in the production of processed food
products, vegetables, and fruits.

29. CONCLUSION
 Finally we need to promote the use of cold
chain as a means to prevent the waste of
limited natural resources.
 Cold chain is so much useful in
Transportation and safe hadling of food
products without any loss of quality.

30. THANK YOU