How to Start A Profitable Cold Room Business in Ghana

The cold room storage business also referred to as frozen food business is one of the most lucrative business in the SME sector in Ghana. Every day smart entrepreneurs across Ghana work hard to take advantage of the ever-present need for seafood, poultry products and beef.

This business thrives most in urban centres where there are a busy lifestyle and high demand for fresh food. People who live a sophisticated lifestyle will rather prefer an already prepared, cleaned and cut meat than having to go through the stress of doing it themselves.

In Ghana, there is an already established market for frozen foods. The most common market for cold room storage business is hotel, restaurants, event caterers who cook for different ceremonial occasions.

This business is not as competitive as most of the businesses out there because it is capital intensive. In this article, you’ll learn how to start a lucrative frozen cold room business in Ghana.

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Contents

What is Cold Room all about?

Cold room storage business involves the pre-packaging and preservation of perishable food items. The most readily things that come to mind at the mention of cold room business in Ghana is frozen fish or poultry products like chicken and turkey, but it actually entails a lot more than that.

Other products can also be stored in a cold room. Some of those products include yoghurt, ice cream, ice block. Basically, any food item that needs refrigeration as a means of preservation can be stored in a cold room.

How to Start Cold Room Business in Ghana

Before going into this business venture, you need to learn how to go about it. You also need to know that this business is capital intensive. If you’re short of start-up capital, I recommend you read our guide on how to raise capital to start a business in Ghana.

Step 1 – Write a Business Plan

A cold storage business is a capital intensive business as such you should take your time to write a good business plan. I would say, this is one of the most important things that you need to succeed in this business. A well-written business plan should have financial planning with a projected ROI and payback period. It should also guide you on how to go about running your business.

Step 2 – Choose a Profitable Cold Room Business Niche

The aim of every entrepreneur is to make a profit. To succeed in this business, you need to choose a profitable cold room business niche. There is a range of products you can choose from when it comes to the cold room storage business. Your market survey will help you in choosing the most profitable niche.

Some of the most profitable niches for cold room business in Ghana include poultry (chicken and turkey), fish, fruits and vegetables etc.

You can also seek advice from other friends who are in the same business and get good ideas. Different foods need different cold rooms, for example, there is a special apple cold room and special ripening room for bananas and mango.

Step 3 – Get a Good Location for your Business

The success of a cold room business is location dependent. You need to get a location close or around people, residential area, around restaurants, hotels, market area, etc. Another good location is close to the airport or seaport, however, this will be to serve majorly exporters of perishable products.

Step 4 – Procure the Required Equipment

Depending on the scale of your business you need to get equipment that will serve the need of your customers. If you’re going into a large scale cold room storage facility, you’ll need to get equipment that will take care of manufactured/packages or imported products.

However, if you’re engaging in a small-scale cold room business, all you need is a good shop, refrigerators or a min-cold room, constant power supply and of course, access to cheap supply of products.

Step 5 – Construct a Cold Room Facility

This is very important for large scale cold room business. There are ready-made cold storage facilities, however, there are quite expensive. If you can’t afford, it is recommended you construct a suitable cold room storage facility for your business.

Step 6 – Register your Business

You’ll need to get your business registered with the right agencies. Firstly, you’ll need to register with the Registrar General’s Department (RGD) and get your certificate of incorporation.

Secondly, since you would be dealing in consumable food items and may also be importing some of your products, it is necessary to register with the Food and Drug Authority (FDA). Importantly, this is necessary for a large scale cold room storage business that deals with storing imported food products.

Step 7 – Promote your Business

Without promoting your business, you won’t be successful in your venture. Once your business is up and running, you need to do effective marketing to broaden your chain of customers. You can explore reliable means of advertisement based on your budget. It is also important to use social media. If you are buoyant enough, you can also use handbills, flyers, television, radio and word of mouth.

Step 8 – Build Your Logistics

Delivery of products to your costumers can be your ace in the sleeve. This strategy can attract more customers to your business. However, this could come at an extra cost.

It means that you may focus on delivery to clients who make bulk purchases. You can also decide to go online and provide options for the delivery of your product. If you do not have your own trucks to deliver the products, then think about hiring a logistic company who would do it for you. Do not forget to stay in contact with bulk customers.

Conclusion

Cold room business is a very lucrative business in Ghana. However, just like every other form of businesses, it has its own challenges as well. However, you can be profitable if you have established contact, customer base, and the strategic location. With a good business plan and research, you are on your path of being a successful entrepreneur.

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