“The concept of Bonded cold store facility was unheard of in India until recent times -JWL is one of the few cold chain companies which operate a custom bonded cold store. Within a short period our commencement of business, JWL has increased its capacity from 6,800 pallets to 20000 pallets, due to the huge demand of value-based cold chain capability of JWL”– Raaj Jobanputra

For people who haven’t heard the story, how did you come to start JWL Cold Store Pvt. Ltd.?

Our group companies have been in the field of logistics industry since last 3 decades. Our innate knowledge of industry gave us immense confidence to focus on the Cold Chain Industry in India. The Cold Chain Industry is in its infancy in India and we are very keen to pioneer into it with world class technology and services

JWL has started it’s operations in 2014 near India’s largest Port JNPT/Nhava Sheva. Within a short period of 18 months of time from its commencement of business, it has succeeded in establishing itself in the business of Cold Chain Management in the Mumbai port area. In this short span, we have more than doubled our capacity from 6,800 pallets to 14,200 pallets, due to the huge demand of value-based cold chain capability of JWL. Our current capacity 20000 Pallet positions.

Can you tell us about your Cold Storage operations? How do they work?

JWL aims to serve the food and pharmaceutical industries for which it has specially designed food and pharma hubs dedicated for these industries. Our value-based services model has been a runaway success in the Cold Chain business. Since JWL and our group companies are into different business model in logistics, we can offer complete end to end solutions to our partners.

JWL has exclusive facilities, each dedicated for Food Products and Pharmaceutical Products, both of which are FSSAI/FDA approved, ISO & GDP certified. JWL boasts of temperature ranges from -25OC to +25OC. In our journey so far, JWL has created a strong partnership with its customers such as Ferrero India, CIPLA, Haagen-Dazs, Mondelez India & Dupont, etc., to name a few. By virtue of these partnerships, we have been able to inculcate the best practices in the pertaining industries into our DNA.

Which industry sectors are your customers in and in which sector is adoption of your solutions growing fastest?

JWL is into both Food and Pharmaceutical cold chain management. We have equal capacity in both these sectors. We feel, rather than going by the sectors we have to differentiate ourselves with our quality standards and we are on it. We are enjoying strong relationship with many Food and Pharmaceutical Customers already we intent to grow in both the sectors.

Building Container Freight stations near Custom Bonded Cold stores in need of the hour. Discuss.

JWL is strategically located adjacent to a CFS (JWR Logistics P Ltd- an associate company). This gives JWL an advantage by way of approval from the customs department to operate a Custom Bonded Cold Chain facility. The concept of Bonded cold store facility was unheard of in India until recent times -JWL is one of the few cold chain companies which operate a custom bonded cold store. In India, cold chain facilities are till date predominantly in the unorganized sector catering to the low value cargo – especially domestic produce. When JWL was being conceived, the Promoters’ huge experience in logistics, especially EXIM, played a critical role in envisaging JWL as a custom bonded facility. The need gap was identified as temperature sensitive cargo, would at times be plugged in at port/CFS for days, incurring huge demurrage charges. In order to provide a cost- intelligent solution to temperature-sensitive cargo importers, the custom bonded cold chain was born. In our bonded cold chain facility, an importer can store cargo before paying custom duty – by paying JWL charges for this service. This has three- fold advantages:

a) Savings to the importer by way of huge demurrage charges at CFS. b) Healthy working capital management c) Operational efficiency by way of requirement based stock dispatch

What are the benefits of belonging to your Cold Storage and Transportation business, compared to other networks?

JWL has a unique advantage in terms of its location – situated close to India’s largest port – JNPT, JWL becomes the most logical choice amongst the Importers and Exporters who are associated with JNPT Port.

Other advantage of JWL is that it is close to 2 large consumption centers namely Mumbai and Pune. With the advent of QSRs (Quick Service Restaurants) and change in consumption patterns of Indian Population, the consumption centers have contributed in demand for Cold Chain Industry. JWL caters to the demands of Mumbai & Pune. Also, Mumbai and Pune are large industrial regions where Food and Pharmaceutical manufacturing takes place. Being close to these manufacturing hubs of Maharashtra, JWL provided unique B2B solutions in both storage of perishables and distribution services,

What are the future plans of the JWL Cold Store?

Within a short period our commencement of business, JWL has increased its capacity from 6,800 pallets to 20000 pallets, due to the huge demand of value-based cold chain capability of JWL. We aim to expand ourselves to Pan India with effective value based Cold Chain services. We also have a plan to start Domestic distribution services which will include Primary and secondary distribution networks.

What innovative and technological measures have you adopted at your companies in order to achieve the dream of a seamless supply chain network?

Technology and innovations help increase efficiency and productive in the system. We strongly believe in adopting and adapting to innovative, cost-effective methods. We strive to learn and make the most off all the resources we are blessed with in our country. Natural systems such as Solar Systems, Rainwater Harvesting, Effluent Treatment Plants etc are essential aspects that have been adopted by us. Further, we believe in upgrading our systems constantly. Hence, we have invested in a robust ERP system and integrated it with our own mobile application to bring about transparency and efficiency to the end used. With facilities such as live camera viewing, live inventory and temperature monitoring systems that are shared with all the business associates. Our facilities are GDP, ISO and C-TPAT compliant. There are more plans in our kitty and you will see them soon

Finally, Where do you see JWL Cold Store Pvt. Ltd. going from here?

JWL aims to emerge as the best Cold Chain, delivering value based solutions in India. We aim to expand into domestic distribution and create our footprint Pan India. We also aim to provide holistic solutions including food processing storage of different agriculture produces to save on total produce of our Country.