Russian meat and fish specialist expands cool chain with one more state-of-the-art distribution centre
Miratorg Agricultural Holding with headquarters in Moscow, which produces mostly meat products and chilled Norwegian salmon and trout SUPERIOR under its 7 Seas label, has launched a state-of-the-art distribution centre in Kaliningrad region with the facility's coldstorage capacity estimated at 6000 tonnes or more than 4500 pallet places, reports www.fishnet-russia.com (www.fishnet.ru) with reference to the company.
Investments to the project have exceeded 370 million RUB. The complex is to start working at full capacity in February 2010. It will become Kaliningrad's first coldstore of the world level and third low temperature coldstore of the holding.
The distribution centre is designed for handling, storage, kitting-up and shipping of all types of frozen and chilled products made by Miratorg and other food producers as well as for satisfying the needs of retail chains. In particular, the coldstore will handle the raw fish and final products of Kaliningrad-based convenience food producing plant which is a structural unit of Miratorg. About 50% of capacities of Miratorg's new distribution centre are to be sold on the market as services for responsible storage, packaging, kitting-up and shipping of foodstuffs.
The distribution centre is located near Kaliningrad in the village of Zaozerie of the region's Guriev district, some 2 kilometers away from the city's circumferential road, on the region's main federal route of Moscow Prospect. The total area of the complex amounts to 9000 square meters. The distribution centre contains a low temperature coldstore, a three-storied administrative building, an automobile technical centre and equipment for disinfection of freight fleet, and a parking place for 30 heavy haulers.
The main building of the low coldstorage complex has a coldstore area of 5500 square meters with freezing rooms at 3050 meters, above-zero rooms at 175 square meters, and an expedition zone of 1340 square meters. The coldstore includes zones for storage of deepfrozen products (-18...-24 degrees C) and chilled products (+2...-5 degrees C), for loading (0...-5 degrees C), packing, reprocessing and cargo weighing.
The distribution centre has been designed and built by Kaliningrad institute Promproekt in record short time from July 2007 to December 2008. The complex is furnished according to the international standards with equipment made by famous producers such as ISOCAB (France/Belgium), ROSS and OM (Italy) and Bitzer (Germany). The low temperature coldstore is equipped with freon automated reefer plant which will make it the first complex in Kaliningrad region where earlier there have been only ammonia refrigerating units built before and after the second world war.
Miratorg centre complies with the modern standards of sanitary and hygiene safety. It is outfitted with mechanic-chemical and biological sewage disposal plants. The centre's construction enables isolated storage of any kinds of products in compliance with Russia's and EU's veterinary and sanitary requirements for food storage and handling. All the veterinary services, control and papers drawing are carried out directly on the territory of the distribution centre by the veterinary department of the region's Ministry of Agriculture.
The distribution centre will give Kaliningrad region 50 new jobs and the total workforce of Miratorg in Kaliningrad will amount to 150 people. The centre in Kaliningrad is the third low temperature coldstore complex in the structure of Miratorg. In 2007 the holding opened distribution centres in Moscow and Saint Petersburg capable of storing correspondingly 25,000 tonnes and 8000 tonnes at any one time. In the future the holding plans further development of the coldstore chain in large cities of Russia.