Cold Storage Project Planning Guide

Stage 1 — Business case

Quantify demand, throughput and the ROI target. Confirm sponsor, budget envelope and 5-year growth assumptions.

Stage 2 — Concept design

Set storage volume (m³), pallet positions, temperature classes and daily throughput. Draft mass-and-energy balance.

Stage 3 — Site & permits

Confirm land, ambient design conditions, grid capacity, water, effluent and building/environmental permit path.

Stage 4 — Refrigerant & controls strategy

Choose refrigerant (NH₃, CO₂, HFC, HFO) against local F-gas regulation and safety class. Pick controls architecture (PLC/SCADA + IoT).

Stage 5 — Financing route

Record the sponsor's funding status separately from technical scope. Qualified projects may, with consent, be introduced to independent financing partners; ColdMatch and Global B2B Group do not lend or provide financial advice.

Business-case evidence and scenarios

Keep assumptions separate from verified inputs. Compare a base case and downside cases using the existing capacity, energy and TCO tools; do not treat their outputs as quotations or promised returns.

• Record demand evidence, inventory peaks, dwell time and throughput by temperature zone, with source and date.
• Separate capital scope, operating costs, working capital and exclusions; record currencies and tariff assumptions.
• Document the decision criteria and unresolved assumptions before the sponsor approves the next stage.

Site due diligence and evidence register

Retain the original site-survey pack. For each finding record the document, date, owner, verification status and unresolved action; a completed checklist is not a site approval.

• Confirm land rights and permitted use with qualified local advisers; attach survey, ground-condition and flood-risk evidence.
• Confirm access, loading geometry, electrical capacity, backup power, water and drainage with responsible providers.
• Identify existing-building interfaces, hazardous materials and expansion constraints for professional assessment.

Regulatory responsibility — food and pharma

Use a jurisdiction-specific requirements register, not a universal compliance claim. Record the authority, applicable requirement, evidence, responsible specialist and approval status.

• Food projects: define product-specific hygiene, temperature-control and traceability requirements with the food-safety lead.
• Pharma projects: define product storage conditions, quality-system responsibilities, mapping, monitoring and qualification scope with the quality lead.
• Have local specialists confirm building, fire, environmental and refrigerant-safety requirements before tender issue.

Governance and approval gates

Assign the sponsor, operations lead, qualified engineer, quality or food-safety lead and procurement lead. Name who approves scope, assumptions, tender issue, changes and acceptance; these are buyer responsibilities, not services implied to be supplied by ColdMatch.

• Keep a dated decision log, versioned scope and risk register with named owners.
• Record conflicts of interest, evaluation criteria and comparable bid boundaries before reviewing offers.
• Carry open actions, commissioning evidence and handover responsibilities into the contract review.