The Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) has opened its first R350 million cold storage facility in the world in South Africa where it will meet the growing demand for cold chain warehousing close to the Port of Durban.
MSC South Africa chairman, Captain Salvatore Sarno, and his wife Sandra, officially cut the ribbon to mark the opening of the shipping line’s Medlog cold storage facility, at a glittering ceremony attended by local and national business leaders across the logistics, wholesale, retail and producer chain on Thursday night.
The cutting-edge cold storage facility is located at 8 121005 Street, just off Harry Gwala Rd in Chesterville, less than 10km from the port. The facility can accommodate 10,000 pallets, to meet the growing demands of the cold logistics market and ensure the preservation of temperature-sensitive goods, guaranteeing their quality during transit.
Sarno said the development was the latest in a series of R2 billion worth of investments that MSC has made in South Africa over the past few years since the 2019 Covid-19 pandemic, including the recently opened Nelson Mandela Cruise Terminal in Durban.
“Medlog is the logistics arm of MSC in Geneva, which is very well known in Europe but almost unknown in South Africa. It will be under this name that all our logistics activity will trade here in the near future,” said Sarno.
MSC CEO Soren Toft, said South Africa had a “special link” to the shipping line, which opened its office in Durban after its first vessel sailed to port of Durban in 1971.
“Today we are a premier shipping line in the world, we operate over 800 ships and have five ships in the sky, our five aircraft,” Toft said.
He said the company operated 300 routes, calling at 520 ports in 150 countries. It has around 700 officers globally.
“Every employee is here to serve you, giving you the best personal service which is what we strive to do for you every day. We try to be a humble servant in the global supply chain,” he said.
“The rainbow nation has a very special link to the MSC because it is where shipping started and we have investment more than R1 billion in infrastructure and new jobs, and in training thousands of young people to get jobs,” he said.
“We want to help South Africa achieve its vision to become sustainable, economically prosperous and self-reliant.”
KwaZulu Natal Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube welcomed the investment saying the facility would improve the the country's supply chain system and create many jobs. She said the province would “give all our necessary support to make sure we promote the export of goods and we are also focusing on the decongestion of our ports.”
