The Cold Storage Market | France

Cold storage is the responsibility of the refrigeration logistics sector as well as refrigerated transport. This is the step of intermediate storage between the factory exit and the logistics platform, to avoid unintended interruption of the cold chain.

The cold storage warehouse is a building that allows the storage of perishable goods by keeping them at low temperature. The products concerned are divided into two categories:

• Food products (meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, fruit and vegetables);
• Pharmaceutical products.

Cold storage can be:

• in positive cold (between 0°C and 15°C);
• in negative cold (less than 0°C);
• multi-temperatures (positive or negative cooling and storage of dry products).

The French storage and warehousing market is growing. Very large warehouses are increasingly popular and privileged to meet the ever-increasing demand of e-commerce. However, if the cold storage market can rely on the growth of online food trade, in the cold storage industry, there are several obstacles to expansion: the reduction in the consumption of animal products, the decrease of frozen products and the growing appeal for fresh produces, but also for local products. This segment is very marginal, but short circuits are becoming more and more popular. Another challenge of the cold storage activity, which is particularly energy-intensive, is the management of its energy consumption costs.

The cold storage activity is relatively regulated. Among other things, the actors must respect the cold chain and the use of HFC, which makes it possible to maintain a relatively low temperature.