The cold chain logistics supply chain also experienced positive growth, both during the Covid-19 pandemic and post-pandemic, along with the increasing demand for frozen food. The development of the cold chain business sector in the logistics industry also encourages players to make improvements in terms of equipment and networks in order to compete with other logistics industry players. Co-Founder Paxel Zaldy Ilham Masita explained that the Covid-19 pandemic had formed a new habit among people to send food between cities. Not limited to just within the city.
At the same time, Paxel also captures the potential of Culinary SMEs in the region which also has great potential and has been hampered by the absence of the required inter-city cold chain delivery. Seeing this condition, logistics players, including Paxel, are also interested in developing a last mile cold chain throughout Indonesia. Zaldy explained that Paxel's shipment volume from the frozen food segment in 2021 rose by 56 percent compared to 2020. In Semester I/2022, this volume has even grown to 83 percent compared to semester I/2021. "Paxel hopes to grow above 50 percent. every year. The growth strategy will be driven by other logistical collaborations so that they can grow quickly and also build good systems and Human Resources (HR)," he said to Bisnis.com, Sunday (7/7/2022).
To keep pace with the current cold chain business growth, Paxel will also expand to 30 other cities in 2022. Starting from Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi to Sorong. Zaldy also hopes that the business expansion can be accompanied by improved transportation access outside Java. The reason, he assessed, is that currently the prospect of cold chain business growth is also still characterized by the challenges of high-cost air distribution and many cold chain equipment that still has to be imported. In line with Paxel, Anteraja has also started frozen food services. Anteraja's VP of Sales & Marketing Andri Hidayat is optimistic that this service innovation can drive Anteraja's performance in the future. “In mid-2022, Anteraja will present the Anteraja Frozen service. This service is presented in line with the increasing market demand for frozen food delivery. Currently the Anteraja Frozen service can be used for Jabodetabek residents," he explained. Andri assessed that in the Frozen Food business, packaging and shipping are important things that must be considered. Having a short shelf life outdoors, frozen food requires special handling both in packaging and shipping in order to arrive safely into the hands of customers. Therefore, Anteraja Frozen Service is equipped with various refrigeration facilities in each delivery process. Each courier tasked with picking up/delivering frozen packages will be provided with a cooler bag, besides that freezers are also prepared at operational points to maintain the temperature resistance.
Couriers will also attach special marking stickers to ensure frozen packages get special treatment. Apart from the completeness of this equipment, the senders also need to ensure that the packages sent are packaged properly and do not leak. With special equipment and handling, packages that are sent meet a number of criteria. Among them with a maximum weight of 5 Kg, a temperature of -5 to 2 degrees Celsius with dimensions of 30cm x 30cm x 20 cm. The development and improvement of cold chain services is one of the strategies that will be carried out by Anteraja. In addition, Anteraja is also developing new services to meet consumer needs, such as Kargo. Andri believes that new services supported by e-commerce, fintech, digital payments and the use of digital technology will become a new growth engine in line with the increase in internet users driven by changes in people's shopping habits to an online system. Anteraja targets the volume of shipments by the end of this year to reach more than 1.5 million parcels per day.
Meanwhile, Executive Director of the Indonesian Refrigeration Chain Association, Hasanuddin Yasni, projects that cold chain logistics will still grow significantly in the long term. According to him, the prospect of cold chain growth will be boosted by the high demand for frozen food or frozen food. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he said, people have become accustomed to making frozen food stored in the refrigerator as stock at home. "The cold chain industry has started again in Semester II/2021 although it was corrected due to the high cost of shipping imports of raw materials and cooling machines, which reached 3 times," he said. In 2022, he sees cold chain actors continue to expand to existing businesses. Coupled with the entry of new players who see the potential for export, import and domestic markets. Freezing food service providers have also become a very potential business field in line with the rapid growth of marketplaces and e-commerce that facilitate access to online orders. This is then used by dry product service providers whose consumers have been formed through the IoT network that they already have. They are gradually making storage hubs as points of collection and collection of frozen food in the delivery process to the final consumer. In fact, he continued, the storage hub facility was also repaired by logistics actors. Starting from the chest-freezer, it is gradually refined with both mini cold storage and portable cold storage. In 2021, he said, the demand for frozen food delivery ranged from 120,000 to 160,000 packages per day. During busy periods such as national long holidays and the fasting month, only 60 percent are served with a good cold chain system.
Then, in Semester I/2022, the average demand touched 400,000 per day during the fasting month and Eid yesterday. This figure is a positive catalyst in building cold chain infrastructure in the last mile cool delivery chain. “Several players in this chain such as Paxel and followed by Anteraja have strategized in developing the delivery area. In the future, several other new and segmented players from the marketplace business units will emerge,” he explained. Hasanuddin assesses that cakes in the cold chain market remain promising. He explained that the first mile segment chain, which supplies fresh raw materials to food processing, is also a separate business field. Not to mention in the middle mile chain of reefer transport services provided by special players and 3PL. Meanwhile, the last mile chain will be the industry's guide for the cold chain business going forward. Based on his records, last year, the number of existing cold storage owned by the players already amounted to more than 2.5 million pallet positions (PP) or grew by around 103,000 pallet positions compared to 2020. He predicts that by 2022 this could increase by around 140,000 PP in line with the expansion of the actors. The growth of the cold chain industry is almost completely supported by the logistics expansion of a big third party logistics player or what has been known as 3PL. "Regarding the high enough capital investment, the collaboration strategy so that connectivity is well digitized and transparently informed is a challenge in competing in the future," he said.
