Urgent Fixes Needed for Sri Lanka’s Seafood Cold Chain 🐟

• The fisheries sector faces substantial post-harvest losses and lost premium market access due to critical gaps in the cold-chain integrity, impacting coastal livelihoods and seafood export revenue. • Core Problems: High post-harvest losses at landing sites from lack of basic ice, insulated containers, and handling training. Uneven infrastructure: Cold stores and IQF (Individual Quick Freeze) facilities are concentrated, leaving many remote landing sites without pre-coolers or blast freezers. High electricity/diesel costs and unreliable power make cold-storage operations expensive and risky. Small-scale fishers and micro-processors struggle with finance for equipment and compliance with stringent export standards (HACCP, SPS). • High-Impact Solutions: Short-Term: Deploy portable icing/pre-cooling units at high-loss landing sites. Fund cooperative hubs to aggregate catch and manage refrigerated transport. Offer “HACCP starter” packages to boost compliance. Mid-Term: Invest in strategically placed regional cold-storage and IQF processing hubs. Create leasing schemes and blended finance for SMEs to obtain insulated trucks and freezers. Policy Nudges: Use targeted tax incentives on refrigeration equipment and employ Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) to build and operate regional infrastructure, reducing risk and unlocking private capital. • Goal: Simple, coordinated investments in first-mile cooling and aggregation offer the fastest return, turning the current chain of losses into a reliable source of high-value export revenue.