Cold Chain process for ice cream in India Special focus-Hindustan unilever, kwality walls plant West Bengal

India Though India has a low per capita ice cream consumption of 300 ml per annum, the trend is slowly changing due to a number of reasons. Indian summers are synonymous with ice creams. Come summers, and you will see a number of colorful pushcarts selling the choicest of ice creams in numerous flavors from the traditional vanilla and chocolate to unusual varieties or, for those who like to have ice cream in peace, there are a number of ice cream parlors that are opening shop. The worldwide consumption of ice-cream is 15 billion liters in terms of volume. Kwality walls have four factories around the Country. The Kolkata factory caters to the eastern region and Orissa. Observation Ice creams are produced stored and delivered with controlled temperature. While producing ice creams a minimum temperature of 1 to 3 C is maintained Storing ice creams requires -25 to -26C. Delivery of ice cream is at 15C on a standard.

Transportation Ice cream products must be maintained at or below 15C during transport from manufacturing plants to depots to customer. It is being transported in refrigerated trucks from factory stores (Majherhat) to whole sale depot (Raja bazaar), which is the central distribution point for the city. From here ice creams are being allocated to the whole sellers. From the whole sellers retailers take it by small refrigerated vans with the temperature of -15C. Limitations: Added cost of distribution as it is outsourced to C & F agents. If the agents are of the company the cost would be comparatively lower. The company stores can only store 300 l of production at a time, which is comparatively lower than the other factories of kwality walls. No proper distribution network in urban areas. Suggestions: Proposed Program to Reduce Distribution Costs. Storage capacity can be increased.