Manned by a team of over 200 people, it'll be a 23,700 m2-big, three-chamber, 30k pallet and 50kt max capacity warehouse, with 35 docks able to serve up to 200 trucks/day.
The facility, located within the PNK Park Sofiyskaya KAD, will offer separate storage chambers for frozen (-25°C) and chilled produce (+2/+8°C), as well as for bananas (+13°C).
Approximately 40% of the new warehouse will be occupied by the Japanese-owned Dublin-headquartered fruit company Fyffes, with the remaining capacity available for other customers from the fresh and frozen produce segment.
"I am extremely proud of this project, which is the first such cold store on the Russian market. As Maersk, we are committed to helping our reefer customers in all aspects of their supply chain needs. Those needs go well beyond transportation and storage is a crucial element we are now addressing," Zsolt Katona, Managing Director Eastern Europe, Maersk, said.
David McCann, Chairman, Fyffes, added, "Today's ground-breaking is a very important milestone in Fyffes' strategy to grow our business in Russia. As the largest importer of bananas in Europe, Fyffes is delighted to partner with Maersk in this new warehouse development, which will increase our ripening capacity in Russia to over 200 thousand boxes of bananas per week."
"Maersk is transforming to deliver integrated end-to-end solutions for our customers' supply chains. While growing our ocean activities in line with the market, investing in unbroken cold chain offerings is one of the levers we pull to accelerate our non-ocean business and grow ahead of the market," Søren Skou, CEO, Maersk, also noted.
Having surpassed Germany, Russia has been since 2017 the world's second biggest banana importer, just behind the US.
Photo: Maersk