Article by Lynne McCarthy – Marketing Specialist - Danfoss South Africa
The world recently celebrated World Refrigeration Day and whilst COVID-19 has undoubtedly affected business operations for most of the industry, the overriding sentiment is that of determination to overcome the still-unfolding challenges the pandemic holds, and its imminent aftermath. The encouraging determination to continue business as usual, is in line with the known resilience of the refrigeration trade.
Our new normal, has propelled Southern Africa into the digital way of conducting training webinars and online meetings, which allowed for business channels to remain functional across board. In fact, we have become more digitally active than ever, and a manifestation of this, is our great number of online thought leadership webinars, tutorials & virtual meetings.
The fact that we are not physically together, does not mean we are not a community anymore, on the contrary, as Covid-19 is rampant, it has also been the catalyst for change. We have remained focussed on the needs of the market and we are happy to report that our market applications might have been slowed by a global deadly virus, but it has not halted production, nor has it brought implementations to a complete standstill and therefore we thank the courageous installers for their devotion!
Whilst the world fights a global health scare, the United Nations predicts that by 2050, the world population would have grown to 10 billion, putting immense demand on the world’s food supply. The world is now, more than ever before, reliant on safe and efficient food- & produce refrigeration systems to preserve, transport and store fresh produce and prevent waste. The Birmingham Energy Institute estimates that as much as 90% of the food wastage in developing countries stems from food loss somewhere along the supply chain. An estimated $940 billion dollars are lost, and 4.4 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions are created by the production of food, which will never be consumed, annually. With efficient cold chains, food loss could be reduced by up to 40%.
At Danfoss we own the technology and solutions, required to address this growing demand successfully, whilst being energy efficient!
By making efficient use of the food already produced, it will be possible to feed an increasing number of people with fresh produce without placing an additional burden on the environment. Cold chain improvements can also significantly increase the income of smallholder farmers often in developing countries, as more of their produce will reach the consumer.