CAAT Turin: Cold Chain Logistics and Agri-Food Distribution Operations

Centro Agro Alimentare Torino — known as CAAT — is the principal wholesale agri-food distribution facility serving the Turin metropolitan area and three surrounding Italian regions. With a market area of 440,000 square metres and 79 wholesale companies operating on its floor, the complex handles approximately 550,000 tonnes of goods annually. The logistics and cold chain arrangements within the facility represent one of the more developed examples of integrated wholesale infrastructure in northern Italy.

Physical Layout and Cold Chain Platforms

CAAT's cold chain operations are concentrated in two dedicated logistics platforms situated in Buildings 06 East and 06 West. The combined insulated warehouse space across these two structures measures just under 12,000 square metres. Both buildings are purpose-built for temperature-sensitive storage and are equipped with cold rooms configured specifically for fruit and vegetable products — the dominant commodity class handled at the facility.

The cold rooms maintain temperatures appropriate for extending the shelf life of produce in transit between producers and downstream buyers. Goods entering the logistics platforms do so through mobile loading ramps that allow refrigerated vehicles to connect directly to the insulated storage areas, minimising the time produce spends in ambient conditions during transfer. This detail matters in practical terms: brief exposure to uncontrolled temperatures can accelerate spoilage in high-moisture products such as leafy vegetables and stone fruit, which make up a significant portion of the goods moving through CAAT.

Services Offered at the Logistics Platforms

The platforms offer a defined set of cold chain services to operators within and outside the CAAT facility itself. These include:

• Receipt and handling of inbound goods from producers and transporters
• Load separation — known in Italian logistics as picking — where mixed pallets or bulk arrivals are broken down and consolidated into buyer-specific loads
• Vehicle loading for outbound distribution
• Cold storage for products purchased either at CAAT or at other market locations, then consolidated here for forward delivery
• Guaranteed temperature maintenance throughout the handling sequence, from arrival to dispatch

The availability of cold storage for goods purchased elsewhere is notable. It means CAAT's logistics platforms function not only as infrastructure for the wholesale floor itself, but also as a regional cold storage node for operators sourcing product from multiple locations across northern Italy.

Distribution Geography

Goods leaving the CAAT logistics platforms reach a broad geographic area. The primary distribution catchment covers the three regions surrounding Turin: Piedmont, Liguria, and Valle d'Aosta. Within this area, buyers include large-format retail chains, independent supermarkets, food service operators, and institutional buyers such as hospitals and schools.

Distribution extends beyond these three regions in several directions. The Port of Genoa serves as a downstream node for cruise ship provisioning — a demand category that requires both consistent volume and temperature-controlled delivery on compressed timelines. CAAT's cold chain infrastructure supports this requirement by maintaining product condition until the point of loading at the port.

Cross-border distribution is also documented. Products originating at or transiting through CAAT reach wholesale platforms in Nice and Lyon, with onward distribution from Lyon into the broader French market, including Paris. This extends the facility's effective distribution geography well beyond its regional designation and positions it as a node in a larger European agri-food logistics corridor running from the Po Valley into southern France.

The 79 Wholesale Companies

CAAT's trading floor hosts 79 wholesale companies, each operating from assigned commercial positions within the market area. These companies represent the primary interface between upstream supply — producers, cooperatives, and importers — and downstream buyers. The diversity of operators within a single facility creates a concentration effect that reduces sourcing effort for retail and food service buyers: multiple product categories, origins, and price points can be accessed in a single visit to the market floor.

The concentration of operators also creates informal market price signals. Daily trading at CAAT reflects current supply and demand conditions across the regions it serves, and prices established here influence purchasing decisions at food service and retail level across Piedmont and Liguria.

Relationship to Regional Food Supply

For Piedmont specifically, CAAT functions as the central node of a regional food distribution system that connects agricultural production in the Po Plain — including significant volumes of vegetables, fruit, and herbs from the provinces of Cuneo and Asti — with urban consumption in Turin and surrounding municipalities. The cold chain infrastructure at Buildings 06 East and 06 West is a material component of that system's ability to handle perishable goods without significant loss in transit.

The facility's role in supplying hospitals and schools also places it within the scope of public procurement systems. Italian health and education institutions are subject to tendering requirements for food supply contracts, and wholesale market access provides the price transparency and volume flexibility that many institutional buyers require.

Sources and Data Notes

Operational figures in this account are drawn from CAAT's publicly available facility documentation at caat.it. The 550,000-tonne throughput figure and the 79-company count reflect data published on the official site. The geographic distribution detail (Port of Genoa provisioning, Nice and Lyon platforms) is sourced from CAAT's logistics platform descriptions. These figures may not reflect the most current operational state; verification directly with CAAT is recommended for time-sensitive applications.