IN a bid to reduce the waste of perishables for export, stakeholders in the logistics and supply chain sector have commenced moves to set up cold chain facilities for export food conditioning at the airports.
Disclosing this to newsmen at the Africa Centre for Supply Chain awards held last weekend, Director General of the Africa Centre for Supply Chain, ACSC, Dr. Obiora Madu, said that more than 50 percent of exportable food items are lost in Africa due to non-availability of cold chain for food conditioning.
According to him, the absence of cold chain is one of the biggest challenge that Nigeria as a country has.
He explained that the nation’s supply chain was already suffering before Covid-19 complicated it.
He stated: “Generally in Nigeria and throughout Africa, almost 50 percent of perishable items are wasted every year and it is the absence of cold chain that is the cause of it.
“The absence of logistics infrastructure is the reason Nigeria is not competitive, on the Logistics Performance of the World Bank, we are 110 out of 160 countries. All the indices that are considered to arrive at that position, we scored very poorly.”
He said that putting logistics infrastructure in place and growing the supply chain sector is not rocket science.
According to him, using the rail lines to move goods back and forth will reduce the cost of these goods than when the roads are used.
