Newsletter 30 – Frigorífico Metropolitano opened new logistics cluster of refrigerated products in Valle del Cauca

• The company from Santander inaugurated in the municipality of Buga, Valle del Cauca, the second phase of its investment project: Frigo Logistics Cluster, which seeks to strengthen the local industry of the refrigerated food sector.
• This company is part of the ten investment projects that are being established in the region, during this 2019, with the support of Invest Pacific.

In order to continue promoting competitiveness and sustainable development in the region, Frigorífico Metropolitano, a national company with more than 25 years of experience in providing refrigerated logistics services, inaugurated in Valle del Cauca the second phase of its investment project, which seeks to provide solutions to the regional industry.

Frigo Logistics Cluster, located in the municipality of Buga, is the new logistics center of this company from Santander that arrived in the region in 2017, with the support of Invest Pacific. This logistic center is dedicated to the conservation of the cold chain and offers the necessary infrastructure for different companies, especially in the food sector, to store, process and distribute their products, which reduces logistics costs thanks to access to a single cold infrastructure and a single refrigerated transport chain.

Gonzalo Diaz, manager of Frigorífico Metropolitano, emphasized this during the inauguration event held on July 3 at the new facilities in Buga, after indicating that infrastructure conditions, connectivity in the region and access to the Port of Buenaventura, were some of the reasons that have led the company to expand in Valle del Cauca.

“The original project was the cold storage plant (installed in Buga two years ago) but it was also among our plans to create a cluster, that would gather companies that unite efforts around the production and marketing of perishable products, and we found in Buga the ideal place to do so,” said the Manager of Frigometro.

This event counted with the participation of the Secretary of Economic Development of the Governorate of the Valle del Cauca, the Chamber of Commerce of Buga, the Municipality of Buga, Analdex, representatives of Port Terminals of Buenaventura and Invest Pacific – the Agency for the Promotion of Investment in the Colombian Pacific – among others. All of them had the opportunity to take a tour of the new Logistics Center and get to know first-hand the opportunities offered by these facilities for the cold chain and transportation of perishable products.

As part of the inauguration the forum ‘Needs and Trends of the Cold Chain Market’ was held, under the lead of Javier Diaz Molina, executive president of Analdex -the National Association of Foreign Trade-, a space in which Valle del Cauca was highlighted as one of the regions with better performance above the national average according to the regional logistics index.

According to the Executive Director of Invest Pacific, Alejandro Ossa Cárdenas, Frigorífico Metropolitano is part of the 10 investment projects – which include both new investments and reinvestments – that are taking place in 2019 in the region, with the accompaniment of the Agency.

“Invest Pacific supports both domestic and foreign investment projects, and FrigoMetro, a company from Santander, is an example of this work. The competitive advantages offered by Valle del Cauca contribute to boosting the success of these companies’ operations, as well as their growth, helping to strengthen our business network, promote the arrival of more investment and the generation of more employment opportunities,” said the Executive Director.

With these, there are now 107 investment projects in Valle del Cauca, which in the last eight years have been accompanied by Invest Pacific, generating more than 10,220 direct jobs, with investment flows reaching US$1 billion.