India’s rapidly evolving retail and cold-chain ecosystem is creating new demands for smarter, more efficient and sustainable refrigeration solutions. In this interview with Machine Edge Global, Jagdish Keswani, President – India & Middle East & Africa, Copeland, discusses how quick commerce is reshaping refrigeration requirements, how intelligent monitoring can reduce food loss, and the potential of CO₂ technologies to drive sustainable refrigeration in India.
How is the rapid growth of quick commerce changing refrigeration requirements for dark stores?
India’s quick commerce network has scaled faster than any other retail format in the country. The combined dark store count of the three largest platforms reached 5,026 in May 2026, up from 3,405 a year earlier, with the segment estimated at ₹1.08 lakh crore in 2026 and growing at about 40% year on year. That expansion has changed what refrigeration is expected to deliver.
Unlike a small warehouse, a dark store is a compact unit tucked inside a residential or commercial building, operating 16-18 hours a day across frozen, chilled and ambient zones within a single footprint. Cabinet and cold room doors open every few seconds at peak hours, pushing the load back up each time and demanding quick recovery rather than steady-state running. Meanwhile, ambient temperatures crossing 35°C across most Indian cities stress the condensing side exactly when order volumes peak.
The practical requirements are therefore fast pull-down, stable capacity at high ambient temperatures, modulation with load instead of on-off cycling, a compact and low-noise footprint, low inrush currents for grid stability and unattended operation with remote alarms. At Copeland, our cold chain solutions, including condensing units and compression technologies, are built to perform reliably at high ambient temperatures, delivering stable temperature management across dark stores. Copeland’s ZFI 180 and ZB 300 scroll compressors, CF series compressor optimised for high-ambient conditions and our indoor and outdoor condensing units are designed for these duty cycles.
What role do intelligent monitoring platforms like Oversight360™ play in reducing food loss and ensuring uninterrupted operations?
India’s harvest and post-harvest losses across 45 major crops and commodities are valued at about ₹92,651 crore a year, based on the ICAR-CIPHET study commissioned by the Ministry of Food Processing Industries. Globally, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that about a third of all food produced is lost or wasted somewhere in the chain. Rather than outright system failures, most of this loss stems from excursions that went unnoticed.
Oversight360™ is Copeland’s cloud-based monitoring platform. Paired with Copeland GO Real-Time trackers, it records temperature, humidity, location, light and shock across the replenishment leg into the store and raises an alert the moment a reading drifts, This allows consignments to be redirected, prioritised at the dock or held back before it reaches a shelf. Over time, the data reveals if specific lanes, carriers or routes fail repeatedly, which is where the durable savings sit.
The larger shift is from monitoring for its own sake to actionable monitoring that drives decisions. Traditionally, condition data and logistics data sit in separate systems, making it difficult to connect a temperature alert with the shipment, route or equipment behind it. By bringing these data points into a single view, teams can act earlier, redirecting a shipment, prioritising it at the dock or holding it before it reaches the shelf. At the equipment level, Copeland controls and the Copeland Mobile app with Scout AI can also identify developing equipment issues before they turn into breakdowns.
As the industry moves towards sustainable refrigeration, how can technologies such as CO₂ Booster Systems help businesses reduce their environmental footprint while maintaining performance?
A CO₂ booster system runs medium- and low-temperature loads on a single refrigerant and a single rack, which removes a separate low-temperature circuit and simplifies servicing. The known concern transcritical operation and efficiency falls. Our response is the transcritical CO₂ scroll compressor with Dynamic Vapor Injection, which digests flash gas within the compression cycle and removes the need for parallel compression. That takes cost and complexity out of the design while holding efficiency in warm climates. Around it we supply transcritical and subcritical semi-hermetics, subcritical scrolls, drives, valves, controls and leak detection as one package.
Moreover, CO₂ booster racks can reclaim heat for water at 60–88°C, offsetting a separate water heating load. CO₂ booster systems make the strongest case at large-format food retail, distribution centres and food processing plants, and that is where we expect adoption in India to build first. These are proven deployments rather than pilots: in Korea we work with partners such as CRK to make CO₂ adoption simpler and more cost-effective; in Australia we supported a leading retailer’s move to natural refrigerants across more than 100 supermarkets; and in Belgium, modular units helped a food store work around tight space while improving efficiency.