Increased percentage of Diabetics patients in the country and their affordability to purchase better quality fruits to deal with their life has made all the cities and towns in India to look at ways and means of ensuring fruits like Apple, Grapes, Orange and Lemon etc. are available round the clock in a year.

Controlled Atmospheric Stores is the one solution to preserve these fruits throughout the year without affecting the basic quality. This is widely used in all developed countries where most of these items are not available and need to be imported and stored for their captive consumption.

This facility will not only require maintaining temperature but also humidity and adequate amounts of Nitrogen and few percentages of Oxygen & Carbon Dioxide. As a result, this increases the cost of the storage by three to four holds.

As on today, if you consider Apple, our country is producing around 28 Lac metric tons in the season. However, we have only 50,000 metric tons storage only. Traditionally, we used to consume the fruits as per the seasons and hence there was no need to go for exhaustive arrangements to store the same.

Now, with this need of the country and growing economy, there is a huge need of seasonal fruits throughout the year. As on today, we are producing 1 Cr Metric Ton of all these juicy fruits. However, we have only 1.5% storage.

To promote this, the government of India is trying to give around 30 to 50% subsidy for these projects. This will not only facilitate the customer but also give a better price to the farmer.

A typical CA Stores which can house 5000 metric tons of storage will cost Rs.45 to Rs.50 Cr. However, this excludes land. There are couples of stores already coming up in the country. Many are on the cards.

As on today, India requires around 4000 to 5000 stores of 250/500 metric tons to take care of the demand of the country and increase the storage to 20% of the total crop output. This ensures wide spread of the storage and covers most of the consumption areas of the country.

A floor area of minimum 10000 Sq. Ft is required to address 120 metric tons of stores. I.e. 0.5 to 1 Acre of land ideally best for a typical CA stores. This will ensure free movement of materials and vehicles. A typical CA stores requires 50% more space for storage when compared to cold storage.

A typical CA stores for optimal utilization should have following points in mind:

1. The wall of the PUF panels must be air tight otherwise it will increase the cost of storage
2. We have to divide the entire storage into minimum blocks of 30 Metric Tones
3. A combination of storage items will ensure perfect utilization of the facility
4. The best of the product quality is established if the stores are 24 hours from the place of the harvest or due precautions are to be taken to ensure safe transportation of the fruits from the farm.

National Centre for Cold Chain Development report of 2015 narrates the same.

We, Maxcool Technologies India Pvt Ltd (MCTPL) are in the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Industries for the last 23 years. We are into Industrial Refrigeration and Air Conditioning applications. We have executed many applications ranging from +5 to - 30 Deg Cent.

We had supplied equipment for deep sea fishing applications as well.

Looking at the need of CA Stores, we have now decided to go into this segment in a big way. This is highly technical and challenging application and needs a right team to both establish and maintain.

Otherwise this will result in not only initial losses but also future loses of stuff stored in the stores.

Experienced teams with all the inputs are on the board to handle this latest technology with best of quality.

It is estimated, CA stores can reach a break even within 3 to 5 years. This variation in the break even period is purely on the planning and strategies of the business.

We at Maxcool Technologies India Pvt Ltd can not only establish a proper store but also ensure trouble free operations for minimum of 15 to 20 years.

Additionally, we can bring value addition in strategy building and ensuring faster break even apart from putting on to the right agency for banking and subsidy collections from the government.

 

Click here to view a detailed PPT on Controlled Atmospheric Stores