ASSOCHAM summit urges cold-chain sector to prioritise capability over capacity

Industry leaders called for better utilisation, quality standards, financing and end-to-end connectivity in India’s cold-chain network, as annual post-harvest losses near $18.5 billion and only 4% of perishables move through organised cold chains.

— Source publishedFri, 11 Sept, 2026, 17:31 IST·First seen Fri, 11 Sept, 2026, 17:37 IST·Source The Hindu BusinessLine

What happened

An ASSOCHAM summit urged India’s cold-chain sector to prioritise integration, utilisation, quality and end-to-end connectivity over new capacity, citing major

Key facts

  • Annual post-harvest losses: nearly $18.5 billion
  • Only 4% of perishables move through organised cold chains
  • Cold-storage capacity projected to reach 43.7 million tonnes by 2031
  • Projected capacity CAGR: 2.2%
  • India food grain production in 2024-25: about 358 million tonnes
  • India horticulture production: about 371 million tonnes

Why this matters

Target partnerships or acquisitions in transport refrigeration, packhouses, quality monitoring and multimodal logistics to build end-to-end cold-chain capability.

What to watch

  • Government incentives, viability-gap funding or credit-guarantee programs tied to packhouses, reefer fleets and traceability rather than storage capacity alone.
  • Adoption of interoperable temperature-monitoring, product-quality and food-safety standards across transport and storage operators.
  • Cold-storage occupancy, pallet-turnover and reefer-fleet utilisation rates rising materially above current fragmented-network levels.
  • Large retail, dairy, seafood or produce companies announcing integrated farm-to-distribution partnerships.
  • Reduction in rejection, shrink and post-harvest-loss metrics for high-value perishables.
  • Expansion of rail-linked or port-linked refrigerated logistics corridors.
  • Retailers will seek multi-year contracts with integrated cold-chain providers rather than lease-only warehouse capacity.
  • Cold-chain operators will add pre-cooling, sorting, ripening, packaging and temperature-traceability services to raise asset utilisation and margins.
  • Food brands and modern grocers will tighten supplier quality specifications, including farm-gate handling and end-to-end temperature records.
  • Investors and lenders will favor hub-and-spoke, multimodal and aggregation projects with contracted throughput over greenfield cold-store projects.
  • Quick-commerce and e-grocery firms will expand fresh assortment selectively where local reefer and packhouse infrastructure can support low waste.

Also reported by