The Cold Chain Federation has written to Secretary for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Kwasi Kwarteng urging him to help protect their sector from the effects of soaring energy prices.
The letter points out that, ‘Whilst cold storage is crucial to our perishable supply chain and a key weapon in the fight against food waste, it is also a high energy using industry, with vast warehouses operating at temperatures as low as -25°C. The UK’s approximately 500 cold stores use approximately 3.5 billion kwH of electricity making them extremely vulnerable to increased costs and a volatile, unpredictable energy market.’
Tom Southall, Cold Chain Federation policy director, said, “The challenges of the past two years have shown time and time again why the cold chain is so crucial for food supply. If the crisis continues and Government needs to step in to prevent widespread failures in energy intensive industries, cold storage must be a high priority, or we will all feel the effects of major disruption to fresh and frozen food supply.”