Construction of Rotterdam Cool Port running on schedule
Last Monday, under the watchful eye of Kloosterboer’s CEO Hans Kroes and the Port of Rotterdam’s Director Containers, Breakbulk & Logistics Emile Hoogsteden, work on the steel structure of Rotterdam Cool Port officially got underway. A milestone confirming that the construction of this state-of-the-art cold store facility, due to be completed in Q2 2017, is running on schedule, the company said in its press release.
This 40,000 pallet capacity cold store also houses a separate area measuring almost 8,000 m2 set aside for value added services. Examples of such services include repacking, sorting and packing with the facility to ripen fruit.
The aim is to achieve the 4 star BREEAM/NL Excellent certification upon completion of the facility. In order to meet the necessary compliances, the cold store will make use, amongst other things, of LED lighting. Furthermore solar panels will be installed on the roof (12,500,000 watts) providing a considerable contribution towards the construction’s energy requirements.
Rotterdam Cool Port is a valuable expansion of operations in this field. As this location has many multimodal connections with the container cluster on the Maasvlakte as well as all surrounding Greenports and the final destinations in Europe, Cool Port will make a real contribution to the sustainability and efficiency of the supply chain for fresh produce.
Thanks to the the multimodal location with rail, barge and short-sea connections in the vicinity of the container terminals, import and export costs can be substantially reduced. Therefore the transport from terminal to storage location and CO2 is kept to a minimum. PTI takes place at the Cool Port location, which makes the containers ready for shipment directly after inspection.
As Rotterdam Cool Port is being developed directly adjacent to container terminals, it will be possible to make optimum use of reefer container equipment. In addition to this, Rotterdam occupies a prominent position in the cold storage sector because the port serves as the first port of call in Europe for many shipping companies. Speed is crucial for perishable goods. Consequently, a whole range of specialised firms and temperature-controlled storage facilities have established themselves in Rotterdam and the surrounding area through the years. The many benefits Cool Port has to offer made fruit importers Total Produce and Schrijvershof decide to move their acivities to this new location.
The Province and the Municipality have both granted a subsidy for the redevelopment of a large part of the Eemhaven. Rotterdam Cool Port is a good way of utilising part of the newly vacant land. The Province is also contributing towards the access-related infrastructure, in the interests of the Greenports. In addition, it will have a positive impact on employment in the area. It is expected that around 100 people will be working here as of 2017.
