Maersk has announced the construction of a new cold store facility in St. Petersburg to meet the demands of the Russian market. The three chamber warehouse will offer solutions to extend the life cycle of perishable goods.
Constructed by the Russian industrial developer PNK Group, the facility will be located within the PNK Park Sofiyskaya KAD in St. Petersburg and has 23,700 sq m, with 35 docks able to serve up to 200 trucks daily. The maximum storage capacity will be 50,000 tonnes and the fully Maersk-operated warehouse will employ 200 employees.
Approximately 40% of the new warehouse will be occupied by the European fruit company Fyffes, with the remaining capacity available for other customers from the fresh and frozen produce segment.
Fyffes Chairman David McCann said: “As the largest importer of bananas in Europe, Fyffes is delighted to partner with Maersk in this new warehouse development, which will increase our ripening capacity in Russia to over 200 thousand boxes of bananas per week.”
Since 2017, Russia has been the second largest importer of bananas in the world, after the United States. The facility will offer separate storage chambers for frozen produce (-25°C), chilled (+2/+8°C), as well as for bananas, which require a temperature of +13°C.
“Maersk is transforming to deliver integrated end-to-end solutions for our customers’ supply chains. While growing our Ocean activities in line with the market, investing in unbroken cold chain offerings is one of the levers we pull to accelerate our non-Ocean business and grow ahead of the market”, said Maersk CEO Søren Skou.
Source: Maersk
