Cold storage facilities in Turkey, rapid increase during the last years and still a need for more capacity

Horticultural production, including fruits, vegetables and flowers, has been emerging as a major economic activity in Turkey. The diverse ecosystems make it possible to grow a wide range of horticultural crops economically. Annual production has reached over 45 million t of fruit and vegetables, accounting for approximately 3% of total global production, with a rapid increase in production over the last few decades. However, this large volume of production has, unfortunately, not been matched by developments in cold chain management and storage technologies. The postharvest losses in Turkey have ranged between 10 and 30% depending on products and postharvest technologies used (Erkan, 2013). When these losses are taken into account, approximately 5-13 million t of fruit and vegetables have been wasted annually before even reaching the consumers. These losses are actually greater than the total fruit and vegetable production of many countries. Reduction in such a huge amount of losses, and maintenance of postharvest quality of fruits and vegetables, can only be achieved by implementation of appropriate handling of harvest and sorting, cold chain and storage technology. The article by Dr. Mustafa Erkan, published in the last?Chronica Horticulturae 58 (1), explains the landscape of produce storage in Turkey. The history of mechanically cooled fruits and vegetables storage in Turkey dates back to 1904. But, little progress was made over the next 40 years in terms of building refrigerated warehouse facilities. New storage facilities did not gain momentum until the 1950s. From 1952 until 1970, 156 public storage facilities were constructed, with a total capacity of 348.601 m3. Further progress in the construction of storage facilities was made between 1971 and 1980. In the last decade, the cold storage business has become one of the vital parts of the agricultural industry. According to the capacity report published in 2014 by the ?International Association of Refrigerated Warehouses (IARW)? and ?the Global Cold Chain Alliance?s Core Partner (GCCA)?, India had the largest cold storage capacity in the world, with 131 million m3, whereas Turkey ranked 14th, with 7 million m3 capacity. According to the same reports, cold storage capacity increased in Turkey by 68% between 2008 and 2014. Turkey became the country with the highest rate of increase in capacity of cold storage facilities (Turk, 2015). However, there is still a dire need to increase the number of cold storage facilities because capacity is still insufficient to cope with the amount of fruits and vegetables being produced in Turkey. According to recent statistics, there are 1881 cold storage facilities in Turkey. The total capacity of these facilities is approximately 2.2 million t and built in two distinct periods, 1950-1970 (17 facilities) and 2010-2015 (696 facilities). Fruit and vegetables are stored in 49% of the facilities, 20.4% are used for meat and meat products, 19.1% for dairy products, 6.88% for fish and 1.86% for chicken (Turk, 2015). Private companies operate 93.33% of the facilities, cooperatives operate 3.39%, while 3.28% are operated by the public. The article explains the distribution of the warehouses in the county, the paper of the government, who also supported the installation of electronic sorting lines in some packinghouses. Apple is the most stored fruit in Turkey at a total of 1,000,000 t, followed by pear, quince, pomegranate and orange. The paper also considers the kind of installation: Conventional cold storage, Controlled atmosphere storage, Modified atmosphere packaging, about the 1-MCP use, natural storage facilities, and about the Cappadocia facilities. The complete article, as well as the references, can be reached in the pdf below.Turkey hosts the?ISHS?XXX International Horticultural Congress, 12 to 16th August 2018, Istambul, Turkey.Prof. Dr. Mustafa Erkan?works for the Department of Horticulture, University of Akdeniz, Antalya, and belongs to the local organizing committee of the Congress.