Global Fishery Forum & Seafood Expo Russia
September, 17-19, 2024, Saint Petersburg
Coldchain Eurasia Conference: New Horizons in Food Logistics
18/04/2023
Against the backdrop of large-scale restrictions, Russia's logistics infrastructure has shown a large margin of safety and continues to strengthen today. Changing the usual supply chains not only required significant efforts from it to maintain cargo transportation, but also opened up new horizons for development. New opportunities largely depend on the timely modernization of the logistics and storage process, one of the key components of which should be an uninterrupted cold chain. The new international conference Coldchain Eurasia will help its comfortable implementation.

Logistics infrastructure changes

Despite the negative forecasts of a number of experts, the cargo transportation market in Russia continued to develop even under stressful conditions. Closing the usual directions and opening others, the need to serve new cargoes (for example, the supply of meat products from Belarus to China and Vietnam) are only a small part of the vast tasks that carriers have faced. The change in the usual supply routes was accompanied by the departure of foreign companies that were an important part of the Russian logistics infrastructure: first of all, large container leasing companies.

The plan to increase the container fleet already existed and was not directly related to the possible withdrawal of foreign companies from the Russian market. In order to speed up its implementation under the current conditions, the Eurasian Economic Commission (EAEC) decided to temporarily cancel duties on the import of refrigerated containers. This gave quick results - the timely adoption of a number of decisions made it possible to replace the fallen import fleet in a short time and avoid a shortage of containers for transportation.

In general, according to the results of the past year, the volume of loading of fish and fish products by rail amounted to more than 818 thousand tons, which is the highest figure since 2009. Last year's indicators turned out to be 10% higher than the volume of transportation of fish products in 2021, and in relation to 2020 they increased one and a half times.

Unbroken Cold Chain for Fish and All Perishables

The further development of the sector is largely associated with increased efficiency and coordination between different participants in the supply chains. In order to promote the application of a careful approach to preserving the consumer qualities of products, the Association of Food Sector Organizations (ASORPS) has been developing a draft law “On a continuous cold chain of food products in the Russian Federation” for several years. In order for the bill being developed to take into account the interests of all interested parties, in 2021-2022. at the Seafood Expo Russia site, thematic events were organized with ASORPS and participants in the perishable food distribution chain. The accumulated result and real practical benefits allow us to expand the topic and announce the launch of a series of annual events dedicated to the intricacies of transporting any food products while maintaining their quality from the place of production to the consumer's table – the Coldchain Eurasia international conference.

The first conference will take place on September 28, 2023 at the Expoforum Exhibition and Convention Center, St. Petersburg.

The participants of the event will be food consignors, transport and logistics companies, manufacturers of refrigeration equipment and technologies, warehouse and distribution center operators, retail chains, IT companies, financial and insurance companies, professional associations and associations.

The conference will be organized by Expo Solutions Group and ASORPS.