ONE Invests in Reefer Technology.

Ocean Network Express (ONE) has invested in its reefer business by ordering 14,000 advanced generation refrigerated containers.

Controlled Atmosphere (CA) technology will be present in 2,100 of the containers to improve the shelf life of fruit and vegetables by significantly slowing down produce respiration and ripening rates.

The new refrigerated containers were delivered and integrated into the existing ONE fleet at the end of July to capture the peak season reefer demand from markets in the Southern Hemisphere.

This new technology has elevated ONE into the top three reefer carriers in the world, as well as strengthening its market presence in major reefer markets such as North and South Americas, South Africa, Europe, the Mediterranean, Intra-Asia, and Oceania.

Jeremy Nixon, CEO of ONE, stated: “ONE has one of the largest and youngest reefer fleets in the world, equipped with the most advanced technologies designed to handle perishable cargo demand.

“With this new investment, ONE will be able to further broaden its market position whilst investing in the latest technologies to meet future customers demand.

“As one of the top reefer carriers in the world, we will continue to strive in order to find new and innovative solutions to enhance cargo care during transit thereby ensuring superior service value.”

“ We will set up 25 cold chain units across the country”

Gurgaon headquartered Ravi Integrated Logistics (operational since 2015) is specifically focusing on cold chain services. The company, now pushing its services under Mr. Kool brand tag, claims to have picked up significant strength especially in reefer fleet and is now targeting to set up a network of cold chain collection and storage centers across the country. In an exclusive conversation with Ritwik Sinha, the MD and CEO of the company Bhupendra Singh explains the future strategy of the company. Edited excerpts…

Please take me through to the journey of this venture. And what does Mr. Kool stand for?

The actual problem in India as several government data and studies reveal is that 80 percent of the horticulture produce are not getting the right price or are getting wasted either during the transit or at the collection centres because of poor quality management. And it is with the aim to fill this gap that we started from 1st of March, 2015 in the cold chain logistics. We have been getting positive response right from day one and we have numbers to prove that. This is our third year in operations and at the end of the current fiscal, our topline is expected to be in excess of Rs 100 crore. We had started with zero vehicle and today we have a fleet size of 230 vehicles. These are owned assets and we are operating on a pan-Indian basis.

How much of investments have been made in this venture?

The total investments made in this company are to the tune of Rs 75 crore.

Having a fleet of cold chain vehicles is one part of the process. What about the temperature controlled collection and storage centers? Are you also setting up these units?

We understand that and we have begun moving in that direction. In the broader operational sense, there are a couple of activities which we have to perform. It includes the primary collection from the fields, storing them in the temperature controlled environment and then comes the secondary movement- final delivery to the end customer. Our first cold storage unit will be ready in the next three months at Ghaziabad. This would be a 4,500 metric tonnes unit and we have invested Rs 13 crore. We are planning to have 25 such centres across India. The broader plan is: we should have such centers at a distance of every 500 kms.

What is the time line you are looking at for setting up this network of cold storages?

All of them will become operational in the next three years. In the meantime, we will also be adding more vehicles in our fleet. For instance, by the end of this fiscal, our fleet size will cross 250 mark.

How would you explain your customers base and in a broader sense what all businesses you are covering?

We have a diverse customers portfolio which has evolved thanks to our capability to cater to clients of different businesses primarily in the food supply chain. We have solutions for 19 categories of products  ranging from dairy, poultry, fruits and vegetables, meats to chocolates and also special chemicals. Today, we are serving about 550 customers and this number is growing. We are doubling every year and in three years we are looking at a topline of Rs 500 crore.