Women in the cold chain industry

The refrigeration industry plays a major and increasing role in today's global economy, with significant contributions made in food, health, energy and environmental domains which policy makers need to better understand and take into account. The need for engineering and technical staff is currently increasing due to the growing demand for refrigerating capacities, along with the unique skills required of refrigeration-related professions in the field of energy and environment. Women are still significantly and visibly under-represented in the refrigeration industry. The purpose of this paper demonstrates the current preliminary state-of-the-art of women in the refrigeration field collected from the national refrigeration institutions and associations. Incentive actions proposed are the outcomes of the first meeting of the IIR Women in Refrigeration workshop during ICR2015 in Yokohama, Japan.