Cold chain database aids food security
The project is remarkable and exactly how I envisioned it during the onset of discussions
Collaboration between the government and the private sector to further boost the country's cold chain industry is underway, as the Board of Investment on Thursday announced the launch of the Cold Chain Database Project by February 2023.
The project offers a data-driven basis for policy formulation and investment promotion as it maps out existing cold chain service providers, estimates and forecasts supply and demand for cold chain service, and generates data on present and future cold chain service gaps focusing on agriculture and fishery products which needs to pass through the cold chain.
Further, the project provides a guide about the specific locations where investment promotions should be focused while aspiring to meet the Philippine Cold Chain Industry Roadmap's target of increasing local cold chain capacity by 50,000 pallet positions per year in the near term.
Recently, InsightSCS Corp., the developer of the DeliverE platform, presented to an inter-agency working group the concluded cold chain database as the final output of a project named, "Development of a Cold Chain Integrated Supply Chain Solution for Evidence-based Policy Making and Investment Programming."
The said project was started through a memorandum of understanding between the BoI and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources' Environmental Management Bureau through its Global Partnership for Improving the Food Cold Chain in the Philippines funded by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and InsightSCS Corp.
"The project is remarkable and exactly how I envisioned it during the onset of discussions," BoI Governor Marjorie Ramos-Samaniego, who lauded InsightSCS Corp. for taking the lead in the data collection and web platform development said.
Stakeholders' cooperation
On the database's mainstreaming, the BOI Governor urged the cooperation of industry stakeholders to continue supporting the project to have a robust database with data analytics that will lead to the creation of "intelligent, business-informed decisions and relevant policies."