By Global Cold Chain Alliance Director for Africa Paul Matthew
The potential for cold chain in Africa to transform food supply and healthcare, while simultaneously boosting trade and the economy, is becoming increasingly well recognised.
Temperature-controlled storage and refrigerated transportation of food helps tackle hunger, improves nutrition and food safety, and reduces the major environmental impact of food waste. An efficient and well-developed network of cold chain facilities can become the bedrock of food supply chain resilience.
Robust cold chain infrastructure is also central to the success of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), enabling the seamless movement of perishable goods across borders. The establishment of logistics hubs and corridors in strategic locations will facilitate intra-continental and global trade, driving economic growth.
GCCA Africa continues to spread these messages to governments and regional development authorities throughout the continent.
An acceleration in the growth and development of temperature-controlled logistics in Africa will also have a major beneficial effect on employment and careers. The African cold chain already supports hundreds of thousands of jobs, and with the continued expansion of the industry this number can grow significantly.
As a specialist part of the logistics industry and the food and pharmaceutical supply chains, the cold chain provides a wide variety of rewarding, skilled and reliable work. Operational roles include driving refrigerated trucks and operating warehouse equipment, as well as controlling systems and technologies. The growth of the industry is creating new management and support roles, from accounts and human resources to sustainability managers and IT managers. In addition, the cold chain creates demand for refrigeration specialists in associated roles such as engineering, repair and maintenance.
Looking to the future, we can expect opportunities for these well-established cold chain roles to be complemented by additional roles in emerging areas such as robotics, energy management, cyber security and artificial intelligence.
The cold chain of today and of tomorrow is a great career choice for people of all ages. However, these career opportunities – and the growth of the temperature-controlled logistics in Africa and all the economic, social and health benefits that will bring – is entirely dependent on the delivery of skills and training for people to do these specialist jobs.
The cold chain industry has been stepping up its action to provide training and development routes which are enabling people to access these job opportunities and also creating the talent pool required for temperature-controlled logistics operators to grow and to invest in the future. Businesses are training and upskilling their existing teams as well as new recruits for a range of specialist and more generalist cold chain roles.
As the international association representing and supporting businesses involved in temperature-controlled logistics, GCCA is also actively and practically assisting this investment in the African cold chain’s future. GCCA’s research and educational arm, the Global Cold Chain Foundation, is running a number of skills-focused programmes including a project focusing on the growing cold chain market in West Africa. Centred on Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal (see news article in this issue), this emerging market project includes training and educational programmes delivered by GCCF to support local cold chain growth as well as market assessments, study tours and mentorships with established operators in North America. Find out more at
www.gcca.org/project/west-africa-emerging-markets-program/.
GCCA is also engaging with governments and regional development authorities across the continent, urging them to work with our industry to ensure that cold chain skills and training opportunities are being put in place now to service the temperature-logistics needs of Africa’s future.
We are calling on policy makers to work alongside us as we champion the skills that can deliver opportunities to improve food supply chain productivity, including transforming manual work and adopting new automation and artificial intelligence across cold storage and transport. Governments and the cold chain industry must work together to ensure that people are aware of the range of fulfilling lifelong careers available in cold chain, and to ensure that people have access to quality education and practical training in all aspects of operations and management, both before and during their working lives.
It is by meeting skills and training needs now that the cold chain can be in a position to fulfil its potential, with all the advantages that will bring to people living and working throughout Africa, over the coming decade and beyond.