Ayala group breaks ground for second cold storage facility in Cebu

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The real estate logistics arm of property giant Ayala Land Inc. has widened its cold storage footprint across the country after breaking ground for its second facility in Cebu province in a bid to meet high demand outside Metro Manila.

Ayala Land Logistics Holdings Corp. (ALLHC) on Wednesday said the ALogis Artico facility in Consolacion would add 6,000 pallet positions, or designated spaces for pallets, to the company’s cold storage portfolio.

READ: Ayala group building 2nd cold storage facility in Cebu

ALLHC, whose main business involves industrial and commercial leasing, currently has at least 15,300 pallet positions across four facilities, including the first Cebu storage in Mandaue City.

“Our focus remains on addressing the country’s increasing need for cold storage infrastructure,” ALLHC chief operating officer Patrick Avila said in a statement.

“As we build these facilities, it is with hope that our growing network of reliable and efficient storage solutions can help ensure that food products such as meat and poultry,” Avila added.

According to the company, the Consolacion facility is slated for completion in the third quarter of next year.

The Cebu cold storage will be located 12 kilometers away from Mactan-Cebu International Airport, the country’s second-busiest airport.

It will feature 16 cold rooms with temperatures ranging from -25 degrees Celsius to 5 degrees Celsius and a processing room.

To ensure that it will meet industry standards for food safety and quality, the facility will be registered with the Board of Investments, National Meat Inspection Services, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, and Bureau of Plant Industry, ALLHC said.

In the first half of the year, ALLHC opened its fourth cold storage facility, ALogis Artico in Batangas province that drove the 8-percent growth in cold storage revenues to P92 million.

ALLHC expects to complete the first phase of ALogis Mabalacat in Pampanga province within the third quarter. Once opened, this will be the company’s fifth cold storage facility, adding 5,000 pallet positions and 7,700 square meters of warehouse gross leasable area.

Earlier this year, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the government was planning to put up more cold storage facilities to address the volatile prices of agricultural products.

Cold storage facilities are seen as vital solutions to post-harvest losses in the event of overproduction.