Khanya Cold Chain Business Plan — The Business

The multi-temperature store and refrigerated distribution model: 2,600 frozen, 1,500 chilled and 400 ambient pallet positions.

The Business

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2.1 What the business does
2.2 Legal structure and compliance perimeter
2.3 What this business is not

2.1 What the business does

Service line	What it is	Why it is in the plan
Frozen storage	2 600 positions at −25°C	The margin engine and the thermal battery that makes load shifting possible
Chilled storage	1 500 positions at 0–5°C	Higher turn, shorter dwell, and the entry point for most new customers
Ambient and staging	400 positions	Consolidation, cross-dock and dry components of mixed orders
Blast freezing	40 tonnes per day	High-value service few independents offer; wins the manufacturer relationship
Handling and value-added	Receiving, picking, labelling, re-palletising	Priced per event; roughly a fifth of cold store revenue
Refrigerated distribution	3 rigids growing to 12	Required to win storage contracts; thin margin in its own right

Figure 4. Revenue mix by service line, Year 5.

2.2 Legal structure and compliance perimeter

Item	Detail
Entity	KHANYA COLD CHAIN (Pty) Ltd, registered with the CIPC
Tax	South African resident company; corporate income tax at 27%. The Small Business Corporation regime is not available at this scale
VAT	Compulsory registration from the outset
Food safety	R638 food premises certificate of acceptability; FSSC 22000 or BRCGS certification targeted by month 12
Ammonia refrigeration	Major hazard installation obligations: risk assessment, emergency plan, competent-person inspections, pressure equipment regulations
Occupational health and safety	OHS Act, cold work exposure controls, confined space and machinery regulations
Transport	Operator licensing, roadworthiness, driver hours, and cold chain traceability obligations for the fleet
Environmental	Refrigerant handling and reporting; ammonia is preferred over synthetic refrigerants partly for this reason

The choice of ammonia over a synthetic refrigerant is a deliberate trade-off and should be understood as such. Ammonia is materially more energy-efficient, has no global warming potential, and is the standard for industrial frozen storage at this scale, all of which supports the energy thesis in Section 4. It is also toxic, which brings the major hazard installation regime, a mandatory risk assessment, an emergency plan tested with the local authority, and a higher insurance premium. Section 12.1 rates this as a high-impact, low-likelihood risk; the plan does not treat it as a formality.

2.3 What this business is not

It is not a national third-party logistics provider. Nothing in this plan supports a second site. A multi-site network requires a different capital structure and a national customer base, neither of which is contemplated here.
It is not a property investment. The building is leased. The capital goes into refrigeration plant, envelope and equipment, which are worth substantially less than cost if the venture fails, see Section 12.3.
It is not a trucking business. The fleet is sized to serve stored volume, not to chase line-haul work. Section 8.3 explains why the fleet is deliberately capped.
It is not an early-stage venture in the funding sense. The return profile in Section 11 is infrastructure-like: moderate, slow, and dependent on an exit or refinancing rather than on growth.

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