Fresh concerns about Brexit and cold storage stockpiling

Glasgow, Scotland, UK: Stockpiling could be back on the agenda for many companies, particularly in the temperature-controlled food and pharmaceutical sectors, due to Brexit uncertainty, according to Aggreko.

The concerns follow comments from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen who described securing a comprehensive agreement covering all aspects of Brexit as ‘impossible’ within the UK’s current EU membership transition period, which expires at the end of 2020, drawing particular attention to potential barriers for British manufacturing.

With British food and pharmaceutical companies potentially experiencing disruption to frictionless trade in the near future, manufacturers, retailers and the warehousing sector may need to find further storage space to cope with demand around stockpiling food and medicine.

Matt Watson, sales manager at Aggreko, says: “Last week’s comments from President Von der Leyen on the uncertainty surrounding Brexit and trade means that stockpiling is back on the agenda for many companies, particularly in the food and pharmaceutical sector.

“However, organisations considering stockpiling goods may find themselves in the unenviable position of only needing extra capacity to store materials while this situation is resolved. “Organisations considering stockpiling goods may find themselves in the unenviable position of only needing extra capacity to store materials while this situation is resolved.”

Temporary cooling systems and chillers that can transform ambient temperature warehousing into chilled/cold storage could represent a potential solution to this uncertain situation, says Aggreko. These chillers, which modularly range from 50kW to 1500kW and maintain a temperature as low as (minus) -40°C, give companies looking to stockpile the option of creating more storage space at optimum temperatures without needing to make permanent structural changes.

“With this in mind, they are understandably unwilling to undertake the expensive and disruptive process of constructing permanent cold storage space they may not need later,” says Watson. “Chilled and cold storage solutions from Aggreko can be quickly deployed and installed without impacting production, allowing companies to store additional stock to industry standards and enjoy peace of mind during these uncertain times.”

For more information: www.aggreko.com.