Shipping giant Maersk has invested about $150 million in a massive cold chain facility at Hamilton’s emerging mega freight and logistics development, the Ruakura Superhub.

The 18,000 sq m facility, officially opened today, showcases the latest in cold storage technology, design and sustainability provisions, and is Maersk’s biggest infrastructure investment in New Zealand, global chief executive Vincent Clerc said.

It effectively moves the ocean inland for Maersk customers by offering end-to-end supply chain management including import, export and cross-docking services, he said.

“The facility will leverage landside logistic capabilities allowing for larger quantities of imported and exported goods to flow through New Zealand and the wider Asia Pacific region.”

Maersk's global chief executive Vincent Clerc was at the Ruakura Superhub for the opening of the company's $150 million freight and logistics investment. Photo / Mike Scott

Maersk was transforming the New Zealand logistics landscape, connecting and simplifying its customers’ supply chains, the company said in a statement.

Denmark-based Maersk is the world’s second biggest container shipping line after the Switzerland-headquartered Mediterranean Shipping Company.

The opening confirmed the Ruakura mega commercial development by Tainui Group Holdings as a key touch point within the Auckland-Waikato-Bay of Plenty economic “golden triangle” for freighting and logistics in New Zealand, the company said. Around 65 per cent of the country’s total freight flows through this corridor.

The new multi-modal Maersk facility, served by the dual carriage State Highway H1 Waikato Expressway and direct rail to the ports of Tauranga and Auckland, can load 40 foot containers holding 29 tonnes of product onto rail. It can house nearly 30,000 pallets of products in cold rooms and blast freezers, and its multitude of rooms allows for various products to be stored at different temperatures, the company said.

The blast freezers could freeze produce down to international food standards in under 24 hours, locking in quality and ensuring freshness on reaching its destination.

Maersk, which operates in more than 130 countries and employs 100,000 people globally, has operated in New Zealand for 27 years.

A big user of the new cold store would be New Zealand’s biggest dairy exporter Fonterra, the company said.

The land on which the $1 billion Ruakura Superhub is rising is owned by Waikato-Tainui. Developer Tainui Group Holdings is the tribe’s commercial development arm. At 490ha, the multi-use Superhub is equivalent to the size of Auckland’s CBD and is the new home of some of the country’s biggest distribution operators, including KMart, Big Chill and PBT Transport. A 30ha inland port, operated by the Port of Tauranga, started operating recently.

Maersk said its new cold store had a Greenstar-5 sustainability rating, the highest possible, and the company aimed to increase this to 6-star, which would be the highest rating of any cold store in the country.

Andrea Fox joined the Herald as a senior business journalist in 2018 and specialises in writing about the dairy industry, agribusiness, exporting and the logistics sector and supply chains.