Peregrine launches Indonesian cold-storage platform

Peregrine Cold Logistics is entering Indonesia through a joint venture with Sinar Primera, combining an existing cold-storage operation in Pluit with a greenfield development at Narogong.

The two Greater Jakarta facilities are expected to provide approximately 35,000 square metres of temperature-controlled capacity. Peregrine is adding the Indonesian operation to its existing platform in the Philippines and a wider network being developed across ASEAN and Gulf Cooperation Council markets.

The first part of the transaction involves the acquisition of Sinar Primera’s operating SP Logistic Hub Pluit in northern Jakarta. The second involves developing a new cold store at Narogong with semi-automated freezer and chiller capacity.

No purchase price, development capex, completion date, or detailed capacity split between the two locations has been disclosed. Peregrine has also not stated how many pallet positions the Narogong facility will provide.

The existing Pluit operation gives the joint venture an immediate foothold rather than leaving market entry dependent entirely on construction. Sinar Primera lists 3,684 square metres of warehouse space at the site and approximately 4,200 pallet positions.

Its temperature specification includes frozen rooms operating at -20°C, chilled rooms at 2°C, and anterooms at 7°C. Individual chambers range from approximately 300 to 550 square metres, allowing different products or customers to be separated within the facility.

Pluit is positioned close to road connections serving northern Jakarta and the Tanjung Priok port corridor. That gives imported food and other temperature-sensitive cargo a relatively short transfer from the maritime gateway into controlled storage, while the location also serves consumption and commercial areas around the capital.

Narogong provides the expansion capacity. Peregrine says the new facility will anchor a hub-and-spoke model and use semi-automated freezer and chiller systems built to the operating requirements expected by multinational and large Indonesian food customers.

Cold storage places different demands on warehouse design from a conventional ambient distribution centre. Refrigeration plant operates continuously, door movements increase thermal losses, and building-envelope performance affects both energy consumption and the ability to maintain stable temperatures.

Product handling also varies sharply between frozen and chilled operations. Frozen inventory can remain in storage for longer periods, putting greater emphasis on density and refrigeration efficiency, while chilled products often require faster receiving, picking, and dispatch cycles.

Automation can address part of that operating cost by reducing unnecessary travel and improving storage density, but its value depends on order profile and throughput. A system designed around full pallets may be efficient for long-term frozen storage while being poorly suited to fast-moving case-picking operations.

The Narogong specification will therefore become clearer once Peregrine discloses the balance between freezer and chiller space, pallet positions, handling systems, refrigeration architecture, and expected throughput.

Customers targeted by the joint venture include food producers, importers, exporters, FMCG companies, and quick-service restaurant supply chains. Those sectors can share temperature-controlled infrastructure while placing very different demands on order frequency, traceability, food safety, inventory rotation, and delivery timing.

A restaurant network may require frequent deliveries in relatively small quantities, while an importer could use the same warehouse to hold full pallets of frozen stock for a much longer period. The commercial value of a multi-user facility comes from balancing those profiles without allowing one customer’s peaks to undermine service for another.

The development arrives during a broader expansion of institutional logistics capital in Indonesia. Earlier in August, I Squared Capital agreed to acquire the Cella logistics and cold-storage platform, with plans to expand its footprint from approximately 231,000 square metres to around 1.5 million square metres over four to five years.

Peregrine’s initial 35,000-square-metre platform is smaller, but its structure differs. The operating Pluit asset provides existing capacity while Narogong gives the joint venture a development site on which Peregrine and Sinar Primera can establish the equipment and operating model intended for later growth.

Sinar Primera contributes local real-estate development, land access, and project delivery capability, while Peregrine brings specialist cold-chain operations and international customer relationships. That split can reduce some of the friction associated with entering a new property and logistics market, although construction, power supply, commissioning, and customer onboarding still have to be completed at Narogong.

Power is a particularly material constraint for refrigerated warehousing. Sinar Primera lists 865kVA of electrical capacity at the existing Pluit facility, underlining the continuous infrastructure requirement behind even a relatively compact cold store.

As the network expands, energy performance can influence both storage cost and resilience. Refrigeration compressors, evaporators, fans, lighting, material-handling equipment, and defrost cycles all add to electrical load, while backup systems have to protect product when grid or equipment failures occur.

Data is equally important because temperature integrity has to be maintained through receiving, storage, order preparation, dispatch, and refrigerated transport. A larger regional network increases the number of handovers at which information, procedures, or temperature records can become inconsistent.

Peregrine is positioning Indonesia within a broader international platform rather than as a stand-alone property investment. Connecting facilities across ASEAN and the GCC can support customers sourcing and distributing products between markets, but only when operating standards and shipment visibility remain consistent across each node.

The two-site structure gives the company time to prove that model in Indonesia. Pluit offers existing capacity and established operating conditions, while Narogong creates room to build a larger facility around the joint venture’s preferred design.

The next useful disclosures will be the Narogong construction timetable, investment value, pallet capacity, refrigeration specification, and commissioning date. Those figures will determine how the headline 35,000 square metres translates into usable frozen and chilled throughput.

Indonesia is attracting several investors to cold-chain property, so warehouse area alone will not differentiate the new platform for long. Peregrine and Sinar Primera will have to compete on operating reliability, temperature performance, energy efficiency, customer integration, and the speed at which product moves through the building. The Pluit acquisition gives them somewhere to begin while the larger Narogong operation is built.