Animal Industries: Gigantic Cold Store Goes Operational

The structure which has the capacity to hold two million kilograms of beef was officially opened recently in Yaounde.

 

(Cameroon Tribune) The Yaounde Slaughterhouse, run by the Animal Productions and Exploitation Company, (SODEPA) is now operating an enormous cold store. The FCFA 8.5 billion-worth cold store constructed by a Spanish company was officially opened by the Minister of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries, Dr Taiga recently in the presence of several government ministers.

The storehouse is constructed on a one hectare piece

of land in the Etoudi neighbourhood and occupies a surface area of 6000m3 and has the capacity to contain 10,000 carcasses of cattle weighing 200 kilograms each (two million kilograms of beef).

The structure contains a purification centre, executive rooms, electricity distribution and control room, a battery charging room, a standby generator and gas tanks, forklifts, offices, dressing and health sections and a room for hardware spare parts.

Its four refrigerating chambers have a temperature of between zero and -25 degrees celsius while its freezing tunnel has a constant temperature of -30 degrees celsius.

It falls within the triennial emergence plan for economic development commonly known by its French-language acronym, PLANUT.

The General Manager of SODEPA, Denis Koulangna Koutou, to whom Minister Taiga officially handed the keys of the structure, told reporters that the cold store will also serve as a warehouse for the Ngaoundere Industrial Slaughterhouse.

“Beef stored here will be sold to companies in the sector for supply in all the regions of Cameroon. We will be able to control the availability of beef in the market by controlling the quantity that goes out,” he said. SODEPA equally owns cold carriers, trucks that transport the beef directly from the cold store to delivery destinations without exposing it to outdoor or room temperature. It also has extension sites in Kribi and Ebolowa.

MBOM Sixtus