Major Malaysian importer Chop Tong Guan will next month open the doors to its new 2,000 tonne coolstore near Kuala Lumpur.
The new facility in Subang has a capacity of 90 TEU and is scheduled to open in March, according to the company’s director Koay Swee Aik.
Mr Koay told Fruitnet.com the facility has eight drive-in coolrooms, each with ethylene controls, with a fully insulated staging area.
“There is virtually no break of temperature control from receiving to storage and subsequently to repacking and outbound,” he explained. “This is very important, because we store and pack fresh fruits for major supermarkets which emphasise traceability, food safety and temperature control.”
“We will store apples, citrus, pears, grapes, stonefruit, kiwifruit and others. Only fresh fruit.” The facility has a repacking capacity of 50-60 tonnes a day.
The facility is halfway between Port Klang and the wholesale market in Selayang, details Mr Koay, which is expected to save the company significant logistics costs and time.
“This coolstore, distribution centre and repacking facility is concentrated on storage, bulk sales to major wholesalers and servicing the supermarket sector,” he said.
Chop Tong Guan grew more than 15 per cent last year despite the global recession, which Mr Koay said had only a small impact on fresh produce consumption on Malaysia.
“I am pretty confident for the coming year as I see good management and hands-on marketing and trading of fresh produce could lead our company to grow from strength to strength.”
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