Page 40 - Food&Drink Magazine Jan-Feb 2019

COLD STORAGE & TRANSPORT
Chilled beef ramps up in
China
JBS Australia has expanded its multi-million dollar partnership with Chinese company COFCO Meat Holdings at the recent China International Import Expo in Shanghai.
The deal with COFCO Meat Holdings, a state owned Chinese company in Beijing, was signed by JBS Australia’s CEO Brent Eastwood at the expo and aims to reach 15,000MT of beef and $US100 million of trade over the next three years.
Eastwood met with the president of the COFCO Group Patrick Yu as and the COFCO Meat Holdings managing director Jianong Xu at the event to discuss what the MoU meant for JBS Australia’s exports to China.
“It is crucial to have expanded chilled beef access in China,
for our existing China approved plants. There are only 11 export establishments that are approved for chilled access from Australia, and JBS’ Dinmore site is one of these plants,” Eastwood said.
According to Eastwood, the high end Chinese market requires suppliers to deliver safe quality product to the Chinese consumer 52 weeks of the year.
JBS Southern Beef Sales domestic and export manager Robert Ryan said the MoU with COFCO Meat represented an important step in building the company’s customer relationship with the major Chinese business.
“COFCO is one of our most important customers in China and they have developed strong strategic sales channels for the various types of beef we produce in our business,” Ryan said.
“After working closely with COFCO over the last three years, we have increased our beef sales to COFCO Meat
by 270 per cent in volume and increased our dollar value by 300 per cent to an estimated $37 million
Cold storage in hot demand
Changing consumer tastes and retail models are driving demand for cold storage solutions, according to US cold-chain company Americold.
in 2018.” ✷
40 | Food&Drink business | January-February 2019 | www.foodanddrinkbusiness.com.au
CHANGING consumer tastes, product SKU proliferation and the fast rise of online grocery are collectively driving demand for temperature-controlled logistics solutions.
Over the past five years, the warehousing and cold storage industry consistently achieved two per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR), according to IBISWorld Australia, and US temperature-controlled warehousing and logistics company Americold says the demand isn’t likely to slow down any time soon.
Moreover, Americold says it expects to see increased pressure upstream on existing storage space and specialised, temperature-controlled industrial assets. In Australia, increasing land,
construction, and energy
costs, plus ongoing
facility maintenance
costs associated with temperature-controlled
facility builds and operation
are contributing to slow development of new facilities, with very little capacity coming onto the market to offset decommissioned older facilities, the company says.
Globally, however, the temperature-controlled supply chain industry has seen an increase in storage capacity, according to Americold, with the latest reports revealing that 1.6 million cubic metres of capacity has been added to the global market by just the top 25 temperature-controlled facility operators over the last 12 months – an increase of around 3 per cent on average per operator.
And Australia is expected to follow suit, in spite of the removal of ageing assets, with
forecasters predicting that the temperature-controlled construction market will see a CAGR of about 15 per cent between 2016-2023.
In such a business climate, the case for outsourcing supply chain activities to temperature- controlled supply chain specialists stacks up, according to Americold, which operates 156 facilities around he world, including three in Australia.
“The infrastructure is expensive and sophisticated, the networks are complicated to operate, and if your focus is on making or selling food,
then you shouldn’t need to deal with additional complexity,” the company says.
“Dedicated resources and engineering talent with global expertise can design a supply chain to vertically connect food manufacturers to wholesalers, retailers, food service companies, and quick-service restaurant operators seamlessly, reduce the size and cost of inventory piles, customise services to increase product value whilst in the supply chain, and offer end-to-end inventory visibility that maximises order fulfilment potential.
“Customer demands are continually changing so SKUs
are moving faster. By outsourcing temperature-
controlled logistics, companies can
concentrate on satisfying customers’
evolving tastes.” ✷