Market Analysis

Jump to section

• Overview & contents
• i. Important Notice and Basis of Preparation
• 1. Executive Summary
• 2. The Business
• 3. Market Analysis
• 4. The Energy Strategy
• 5. Facility and Location
• 6. SWOT and Competitive Position
• 7. Commercial Plan
• 8. Operations
• 9. Financial Plan
• 10. Break-Even and Debt Service
• 11. Investment Analysis
• 12. Risk Analysis
• 13. Implementation Roadmap
• 14. Key Performance Indicators
• 15. Key Assumptions
• 16. Conclusion and Recommendation
• A. Appendix A: Consolidated Financial Summary
• B. Appendix B: Capital and Depreciation Schedules
• C. Appendix C: Funding and Debt Schedules
• D. Appendix D: Energy Model
• E. Appendix E: Risk Register
• F. Appendix F: Glossary

3.1 A market that cannot be measured precisely

Any cold chain business plan that quotes a confident market size is overstating what is knowable. There is no comprehensive public inventory of South African cold storage capacity: no official database of pallet positions, cubic metres, facility ages or utilisation rates. Published estimates of the market’s value differ by an order of magnitude, and capacity estimates range from roughly 400 000 to 600 000 commercial pallet positions, excluding retailer and manufacturer-owned space that is not available to the general market.

This plan therefore does not rest on a market-share argument. It rests on a cost argument: at roughly R240 per occupied pallet per week at maturity, against a published SME spot reference of about R450 per pallet per week for chilled space, the pricing is set well below the visible top of the market. The question is not whether demand exists at that price. It is whether this operator can fill 4 500 positions within three years.

3.2 Demand drivers

The segment mix is constructed to balance dwell against turn. Protein importers at 48 days average dwell provide the stable base load that keeps occupancy from collapsing between seasons; food service at 17 days provides handling revenue, which is priced per event and is materially more profitable per unit of space than storage alone. A store filled entirely with long-dwell frozen protein would look stable and earn poorly.

3.3 Competitive landscape