PROJECT
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
Southern Cold Storage
– smart efficiency
By Ilana Koegelenberg
Southern Cold Storage in Johannesburg boasts one of the biggest freon multiplex
systems, and thanks to various clever energy efficiency improvements, the power
usage in this rental freezer facility is impressively low.
The solar installation – a view from the top.
U
The first truck being off-loaded.
we and Caroline Schmidthaus are
no strangers to the cold storage
game, having first moved up to
Johannesburg from KwaZulu-Natal in
2008. They bought a frozen distribution
business when the previous owner
emigrated to New Zealand, with Ola
being the primary client and a former
employer of Uwe Schmidthaus.
However, as the rental price increased
annually, Uwe Schmidthaus decided
to start looking around to buy instead.
They had also outgrown their current
premises and the flow of the operation
just wasn’t right. “There were no airlocks
and it was hard to effect proper cold
chain management,” Caroline
Schmidthaus explains.
COLD LINK AFRICA • July | August 2017
Initially, they had looked around to find an
already built cold store, but they couldn’t
find what they were looking for and opted
for greenfields instead. Having run the
operation for five years at this stage, they
knew exactly what they required.
So, in 2012, they bought a piece of land
in the then new Southside Industrial Park
in Wadeville, Johannesburg, and built
their new secondary distribution facility,
predominantly to service Ola still. About
90% of this facility is used for ice cream.
They moved in during April 2013.
This is where they first teamed up
with Lutz Refrigeration who assisted in
the design of the refrigeration plant. So,
when they decided to expand in 2015
and build another facility next door, they
www.coldlinkafrica.co.za
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