Cold chain sector, which playing a predominant role in agriculture and allied sector especially, fruits, vegetables, seafood, milk collection, is poised to have a significant growth in the future. The cold chain has several benefits such as minimizing food inflation, ensuring food quality; benefit the farmers/producers in cost savings resulting in increased income.

Kerala is considered as a consumer state as it imports almost all fruits and vegetables from neighboring states. Almost 95% of the cold storages in the state are for the storage of marine products and for the captive use of exporters. Even though there is not much production, considering the huge arrivals of fruits and vegetables in the markets across the state, cold storage system needs to be energy efficient.

Among the strategies of India Cooling Action Plan of Government of India , development of energy efficient and renewable energy based Cold Chain has been identified. In order to maintain sustainability in agriculture sector, it is important to have deliberations among the stakeholders to implement the Energy efficient Cold Chain Infrastructure.

Objective

The objective of the one day workshop to promote Energy Efficiency in cold energy in Kerala and to augment the response of the industries and other major consumers for Energy which would reduce their manufacturing/processing cost of production and to increase the demand for energy efficient products and adoption by the industries to reduce energy consumption & carbon emission.

Suggested topics for the workshop:

• Overview of Cold chain sector

• Various advancement in enhancing efficiency in Cold Chain sector

• Renewable energy applications

• Financing opportunities

• Technology Demonstration

Target Audience for the Workshop:

• Dairy Units

• Agricultural Producers

• Energy Efficient Cold Equipment Manufacturers and suppliers

• Ice Cream Manufactures

• Frozen Seafood Processors

• Chicken, Egg and Meat Processors

• MSME's

• Energy Auditors

• Industrial Cluster