Koel Fresh conductes Surveyors Training Workshop for Cold Room Operators in Collaboration with Swiss Organizations

Rourkela: Recently, Koel Fresh Private Limited, along with BASE and Empa (Switerzland), conducted a training workshop for cold room operators at Rourkela Municipal Corporation (RMC) premises. Commissioner RMC Dibyajyoti Parida and Lead Advisor Koel Fresh, Prabodh Ranjan Padhee graced the occasion.

The Commissioner RMC inaugurated the workshop and distributed tablets among the training participants; members of Maa Tarini Women Self Help Group (Rourkela) and representatives of Chhedlagan Farmer Producers Company Limited (Sundargarh) and Bhumi Laxmi Farmer Producer Company Limited (Nuagaon), who would survey small and marginal farmers in their respective zones who would be using cold rooms.

Commissioner Parida stressed on the importance of digitalization of cold rooms and how it would benefit the farmers in doubling their income. He appreciated the commitment of cold room operators, especially Maa Tarini Women Self Help Group, who was also part of Team Rourkela at the Bloomberg Philanthropies’ 2021 Global Mayors Challenge.

The BASE (Basel Agency for Sustainable Energy) is a Swiss foundation and a Specialized Partner of the United Nations Environment that uses its unique combination of expertise to unlock investment in sustainable energy and meet the challenge of climate change. Empa is an interdisciplinary Swiss research institute for applied materials sciences and technology.

Training was imparted to the participants about the project and its importance. In the first session, each survey question was discussed in detail to make them familiar with the task. It was followed by an online demo of the survey from start to end. The second session was open to discussion where queries and other concerns of the participants were addressed. The survey app was fed into the tablets and handed over to the participants in the concluding session.

The collaboration between Koel Fresh Pvt Ltd. and the Swiss organizations is aimed to join efforts and expertise towards Cooling as a Service (CaaS) business model as well as possibly some components of piloting the ‘Virtual Cold Chain Assistant’ in India.

Tonnes of vegetables get wasted in India every year. Some of the major bottlenecks are limited or no storage options at appropriate locations, absence of cold storage mapping and awareness among beneficiaries, high upfront cost, limited or no sustainable business models and lack of technical skill sets to operate and maintain cold rooms.

The Virtual Cold Chain Assistant, as a tool would enable smallholders to optimise their decisions on produce and farm management and to gain access to sustainable cooling. The cooling and the app will be made inclusive and accessible through a pay per use (pay-per-crate) i.e. CaaS (Cooling as a Service) business model, where users only pay for the amount of produce they store in the cold rooms, avoiding any upfront cost. It is estimated that the small and marginal farmers will be able to increase their income level by 30%, reduce wastage by 20% and decrease greenhouse gas emissions by more than 40%.

Prabodh Ranjan Padhee also offered his views on the occasion. He congratulated the cold room operators for being a part of this prestigious pilot project and wished them success. He is the former Chief General Manager, Steel Authority of India, Rourkela Steel plant. He had also served as the president of the NIT Rourkela alumni association and is now an executive member of Skill Net, an organisation working towards upskilling of human resources in rural and semi-urban areas.