The electricity bill for the UK’s cold food storage facilities has more than doubled in a year as energy prices soar, according to new data.
Electricity spend for the UK’s cold storage facilities has grown from £560.6m in 2021 to an estimated £1.1bn in 2022, according to the Cold Chain Federation.
A report from the Federation said cold chain diesel costs had risen from £122,280,000 in June 2021 to £322,173,878 in June 2022.
“With energy prices rocketing, the cost of refrigerating cold storage facilities has soared too despite the great progress our industry has made over the past decade in improving energy efficiency and investing in renewables,” said Cold Chain Federation policy director Tom Southall.
The report – said to provide the most detailed look at key cold chain industry facts and figures ever – also said the volume of UK cold storage capacity had increased 10% to 40 million cubic metres since 2021.
Southall said: “The Cold Chain Report 2022 is the first-ever report bringing together quantitative information on cold storage and temperature-controlled vehicles, and it marks a real milestone in the Cold Chain Federation’s commitment to research, gather and analyse data that serves and informs our industry.
“It has also enabled us to identify gaps in useful data and we will work with our members to create these datasets for subsequent iterations of the report.”
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