St Petersburg, Russia: Maersk has opened a coldstore in St Petersburg, Russia, for perishable goods.
The three-chamber warehouse is designed for chilled produce but Maersk intends to offer freezing in a separate chamber for frozen produce “in the near future”.
The new coldstore operated by has a total capacity of more than 40,000 pallets and uses CO2 cooling, which makes it the largest commercial cold store in Russia using this new technology.
The first container to arrive at the new warehouse brought pears from Argentina after a 26-day journey and was unloaded into the chilled chamber operating at a temperature of 0.5 Celsius. In total, more than 60 Maersk’s refrigerated containers were scheduled to arrive at the site, as part of the end-to-end service from Argentina, as well as grapes and apples originating from South Africa.
“The full end-to-end offering will allow our customers to enjoy shorter overall lead time, predictable costs and best in class service” said Zsolt Katona, managing director, Eastern Europe at Maersk.
“Over the coming months, as part of its Cold Chain Management product, Maersk will also establish on site customs clearance, bonded cold storage (frozen) and phyto sanitary/veterinary services, as increased interest by both current and prospective customers underpins Maersk’s strategy of providing integrated solutions for reefer logistics.”
