Tan90 Thermal: the Chennai cold boxes that keep food cool without a fridge on wheels

A busy fruit and vegetable market in Chennai, with stalls of produce under awnings. — A fruit and vegetable market in Chennai, the city where Tan90 makes its cold boxes. Illustrative: not a Tan90 product. Image: Joost J. Bakker, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The problem

India loses a large share of its harvest between farm and plate. A national study by NABARD Consultancy Services for the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, based on surveys from 2020 to 2022, put post-harvest losses of 54 crops and commodities at Rs 1,52,790 crore a year (MoFPI). Losses ranged from 6.02% in pineapple to 15.05% in guava among 11 fruits, and from 4.82% in tapioca to 11.61% in tomato among 14 vegetables, and the study concluded that effective cold chain infrastructure was essential to cut them further.

Refrigerated trucks and cold rooms help, but they cost a lot, burn diesel or grid power and use refrigerant gases. Small retailers, farmers and delivery fleets rarely have access, and power cuts can undo the cooling. As YourStory reported, large retailers can use centralised cold storage and transport, while smaller players and farmers cannot (YourStory).

The product

Tan90 designs and manufactures phase change materials, substances that absorb or release heat as they freeze and melt, so they hold a set temperature for hours. They store thermal energy as latent heat or hydration energy, and work as heat sinks that keep products within a narrow band. Cooling matters for climate too: The Hindu, citing the International Energy Agency, notes it accounts for nearly 10% of global CO2 emissions. Its range of PCMs runs from minus 50 °C to plus 80 °C, and the company says it holds granted and pending patents on them (The Hindu). Products include:

micro cold storage boxes, such as a 50 litre box with four minus 1 °C panels that cost about Rs 3,600 in 2022;
insulated bags from 20 to 50 litres, priced from about Rs 1,200 to Rs 4,000 in 2022;
PCM panels that turn an ordinary insulated truck into a reefer and allow part-truck loading of chilled goods (YourStory).

The founders said in 2022 that their materials are altered at the molecular level to freeze faster and store more energy, and that they target shorter charging times as a key design aim.

How it works

Charge: PCM packs are frozen or conditioned at a set temperature in a charging unit, ideally off-peak.
Load: packs go into a box, bag or truck with the goods.
Hold: as the PCM melts, it absorbs heat and keeps the load near its set point for hours, with no engine, compressor or power supply on the move.
Return: the packs come back to be recharged and reused.
Service: under Cooling-as-a-Service, Tan90 supplies and recharges the units so customers pay for cooling rather than buying equipment.

Timeline

Date	Milestone
Jan 2019	Founded by three IIT Madras PhD graduates; incubated at IIT Madras
May 2022	Six products on sale; clients include Swiggy, Zomato and Zepto
FY2023-24	Revenue Rs 12.8 crore, net loss Rs 6.6 crore
20 May 2025	Rs 20 crore Series A led by NABVENTURES, with Blue Ashva Capital, Capital-A and 3i Partners
2025	Plans to add 10 cities, focusing on Tier-2 markets such as Jaipur, Coimbatore, Mohali and Kochi

Impact and numbers

Customers: Tan90 works with Zomato’s Hyperpure, Swiggy Instamart and Blinkit, among others (The Hindu). In 2022 it was moving horticulture, frozen food and ice cream for food delivery companies.
Manufacturing: after starting at IIT Madras, it set up its own units in Chennai (5,000 sq ft), Mumbai (10,000 sq ft) and Delhi.
Growth: the company claims revenue grew at more than 70% a year over three years. It reported revenue of Rs 12.8 crore and a net loss of Rs 6.6 crore in the year to 31 March 2024 (Inc42).
Funding: NABVENTURES, a NABARD subsidiary, put in about Rs 14 crore of the Rs 20 crore Series A, according to Inc42’s source. NABVENTURES’ managing director said the solutions could redefine cold chain infrastructure, particularly for agriculture (Indian Startup News).
Service model: Cooling-as-a-Service runs in eight Indian cities, with what Tan90 says is zero customer churn, and the company says it is now close to breakeven.

Honest caveats. Tan90’s growth rate, zero churn and near-breakeven claims are its own and unaudited in these sources. It has not published a life-cycle assessment, so the carbon saving against diesel reefers is not quantified; PCM packs still have to be frozen with electricity, often from a coal-heavy grid, and some PCMs are salts or chemicals that need safe disposal at end of life. Passive cooling holds a temperature for hours, not days, so it suits last-mile and regional trips better than long-haul. Many customers are quick-commerce platforms, a sector whose own growth and losses are volatile. The 2022 prices quoted are likely out of date.

What’s next

With its Series A money, Tan90 plans to enter 10 more cities, mostly Tier-2, to launch new products for cold chains, HVAC and data centres, and to expand into Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa (Inc42). Backing from NABARD’s venture arm also points to a bigger push into farm-gate and rural cold chains for agriculture and allied sectors, beyond city delivery.

Why it matters for India / green buyers

The India Cooling Action Plan, launched in March 2019, aims to cut cooling demand across sectors by 20% to 25% by 2037-38, and names cold chain as a priority sector (PIB). Passive PCM cooling that can be charged off-peak, rented by the trip and used in any insulated vehicle gives farmers, small retailers and delivery fleets a cheap way into the cold chain, and cuts food loss without adding diesel reefers to the roads.

Europe is tightening the rules on mobile refrigeration. Under the EU F-gas Regulation, operators of refrigeration units on refrigerated trucks, trailers, vans and reefer containers have leak-check and record-keeping duties (European Commission), and Regulation (EU) 2024/573 phases hydrofluorocarbons out of the EU market by 2050 (EUR-Lex). Refrigerant-free PCM boxes for last-mile grocery and pharmacy delivery are one way European cities could cut both refrigerant use and van idling.