Just six months after setting up a second entity based in Agadir after Tangier to develop and operate cold stores and related services and operations, the American group Ifria Cold Chain Development Company, has just secured a $9.3 million loan from the US financial institution DFC to set up a cold chain warehouse in the locality of Oulad Teima, located between Agadir and Taroudant.

The American Ifria Cold Chain Development Company is expanding its presence in Morocco. This cold chain player, which pioneered the Kingdom in 2016 with the launch of the first temperature-controlled logistics hub in Tangier's Med Hub industrial zone, with the support of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), has now set its sights on the town of Oulad Teima (also known as Houara).

A cold chain warehouse will be set up in the town, located between Agadir and Taroudant on the Souss plain. To this end, the US Development Finance Corporation (DFC) has committed some ten million dollars to finance the project.

On Thursday October 12, this financial institution announced the signing of commitment letters worth a total of $20 million with Ifria Cold Chain Development Company (Ifria), a cold chain development company for the North and West African markets.

According to DFC, this commitment consists of a $9.3 million loan to Ifria Agadir SAS, the cold chain development company. This facility will be used to finance the setting up of a cold chain warehouse in the locality of Oulad Teima.

A second loan of $10.5 million was granted to Ifria Cold Chain Development Company Senegal for the development of a cold chain warehouse.

These facilities will extend the shelf life of perishable foodstuffs and pharmaceutical products, for the benefit of farmers, retailers and consumers, explains the DFC, which concluded these financing agreements on the sidelines of the 2023 annual meetings of the World Bank and IMF, held in Marrakech.

In Agadir, the cold storage warehouse due to open in 2024 will have a greater capacity than Friopuerto (which holds 33,275 m3 of goods on 5,500 m² of cold storage), but no date has been given for the future cold chain warehouse planned for Oulad Teima (10,000 pallets).

It has to be said that the Agadir region has enormous agricultural potential, being the country's leading early fruit and citrus-growing region (representing between 10% and 20% of national GDP, depending on the crop) and a total of almost half a million hectares of cultivated land, including over 100,000 hectares equipped with drip irrigation systems.

As a reminder, before creating the cold chain development company Ifria Agadir SAS, the American group Ifria Cold Chain Development Company set up its first Moroccan subsidiary, Friopuerto Tanger, which now operates facilities at the port of Tanger Med.

Ifria Cold Chain Development Company invests mainly in Africa, with a strong presence in North Africa (from Morocco to Egypt), but also in sub-Saharan Africa, with large installed capacities in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, Ghana, Mali and Togo, as well as in Mexico, in partnership with the local Griver group.

ADAMA SYLLA