The past few years have put resilience back at the heart of today’s food supply chains. Looking to the future, the importance of resilience in tackling new challenges and adapting to change will only grow for the cold storage industry. We must be ready and able to respond to change: those we can anticipate and prepare for, but also the new situations that will develop fast and with little warning.
There are actions we can take, both as an industry and as individual cold storage operations, to improve resilience in fundamental and fast-moving areas such as energy efficiency, climate change, cyber security and cold chain people.
Although the stratospheric energy price hikes of 2022 have stabilised, energy costs remain very high for cold stores and are expected to stay that way for the foreseeable future. Investing in the energy efficiency of buildings, equipment and processes is not only the surest way to reduce energy bills but also helps protect against future volatility in the energy market – an even more attractive proposition with Government energy bill support plummeting from 1st April 2023.
Energy efficiency measures in cold stores are also helping embed resilience to the increasingly rigorous net zero regulations we can expect as the UK and our global partners respond to the impacts of climate change. The cold store of 2050 will need to adapt to operating in a warmer world, but our industry could also carve out a role at the forefront of the UK’s energy transition by investing in on site generation, storage and a more responsive approach to demand on the grid.
Of course automation, artificial intelligence and connected systems have major roles to play in the net zero future of our cold stores, meaning that operators’ overall resilience will become increasingly dependent on cyber security. Taking preventative action and robust recovery planning are imperative.
All of these areas of focus for future resilience require the people and the skills within the industry to deliver future-facing cold storage operations. Warehouse operatives, sustainability managers, engineers, data analysts, IT specialists, HR directors, customer relationship managers, every individual will have a role to play in embedding future resilience into cold stores. Planning for the people and skills that will be needed in the years ahead is central to the Generation Logistics campaign to find the next generation of logistics talent, a campaign which the Cold Chain Federation is pleased to support.
Shane Brennan
Chief Executive
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