Our condensing units and the development of the refrigeration industry in the food industry

In recent years, the rapid development of the fresh e-commerce industry has promoted the structural adjustment of the retail consumer market, and the domestic demand for cold chain logistics is rapidly growing.

According to the data disclosed by the Cold Chain Committee of China Internet of Things, the size of China's cold chain logistics market reached 551.5 billion yuan in 2022, an increase of 15.55% compared to 2021. It is expected that the cold chain logistics market size will exceed 640 billion yuan in 2023, and the high demand in the cold chain logistics market will inevitably become a "must compete" for leading physical enterprises.

In order to meet the current surge in demand for fresh product delivery in China, the relevant person in charge of the National Postal Administration recently stated that express delivery companies are continuously improving their cold chain service functions.

Express delivery companies have introduced cold chain vehicles, opened land cold chain dedicated lines, vigorously developed railway cold chain trains, increased the proportion of aviation cold chain transportation, applied cold chain unmanned vehicles and drones to improve the efficiency of cold chain connection, and improved the integrated operation ability of multiple transportation methods to meet the cold chain investment needs of "the first kilometer" and "the last kilometer".

At the same time, in order to accelerate the completion of the shortage of cold chain logistics facilities in production areas, the General Office of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs recently issued a notice on continuing to do a good job in the construction of refrigeration and preservation facilities in agricultural product production areas, proposing to improve the network of refrigeration and preservation facilities in production areas, promote the sinking of cold chain logistics service networks to rural areas, cultivate a group of agricultural product production area circulation entities, and innovate a batch of agricultural product cold chain logistics operation models.

The Development Status of China's Cold Chain Logistics Industry

At present, the cold chain logistics industry in China mainly serves four major categories, including primary agricultural products, medical supplies, processed food, and industrial supplies.

Due to the diversification and differentiation of service objects, compared to traditional express logistics, cold chain logistics is more like a cross industry, multi industry integrated comprehensive industry. Due to the need to maintain stable low-temperature scenarios at all stages of transportation, the dependence on the cold chain infrastructure and logistics information technology of enterprises are also higher.

In recent years, with the significant increase in demand for fresh food, cold chain logistics has entered the "fast lane".

According to the online economic and social e-commerce database, from 2016 to 2022, the transaction scale of the fresh e-commerce industry has been increasing year by year, while the demand side remains strong. In 2022, the transaction scale of China's fresh e-commerce industry exceeded 560 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.24%.

Cold chain logistics is an important measure for food quality and preservation. At the same time, the development of online shopping, online payment, live streaming and other industries provides the foundation for the development of the fresh e-commerce logistics industry, and the explosive development of the fresh e-commerce industry will further expand the demand for cold storage and cold chain logistics.

In this context, investment in cold chain infrastructure has further accelerated. Data shows that in the first five months of this year, the total investment and construction of cold chain logistics infrastructure in China exceeded 14 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.6%. The total amount of cold chain logistics was 2.65 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.1%.

In recent years, China has gradually attached importance to the construction of cold chain facilities in production areas, especially accelerating investment in cold storage construction.

Cold storage, as the core infrastructure of the entire cold chain logistics, plays a series of functions such as storage and transportation. According to the data from the "National Cold Chain Logistics Enterprise Distribution Map" of the China Refrigeration Alliance, the number of cold storage units in China has increased from 8.5 million tons in 2008 to 56.86 million tons in 2022, an increase of more than five times in more than a decade. The number of refrigerated vehicles has also increased from less than 50000 to 149006 in 2022.

Since the beginning of this year, various regions have vigorously built provincial and municipal level cold chain warehousing and processing facilities based on national backbone cold chain logistics bases. At the same time, focusing on the needs of the "first mile" and "last mile" cold chain, small pre cooling mobile storage facilities will be added in the field, and storage equipment such as refrigerators will be added at the end comprehensive service stations to improve the cold chain logistics system.

In the first five months of this year, the capacity of public cold storage increased by 9.8 million cubic meters, a year-on-year increase of 4.2%.

This also indirectly reflects the broad development space of the cold chain logistics industry. Experts predict that by 2023, the industry scale of China's cold chain logistics industry will reach 2.96 trillion yuan, and it is expected to exceed 500 billion yuan by 2025, making it more likely to grow into a trillion level market in the future.

In addition, according to Statista data, the global cold chain logistics market size in 2021 was $256 billion, and it is expected to reach around $410 billion by 2028, with a compound annual growth rate of approximately 7% from 2021 to 2028.

Strong demand for cold chain logistics parks

The industrial chain structure of the cold chain industry chain is not complex. The upstream is the manufacturer of cold chain infrastructure (including cold storage, refrigerated vehicles, and frozen equipment suppliers), the midstream is the service-oriented industry of cold chain logistics (including traditional logistics enterprises, supply chain enterprises, etc.), and the downstream is mainly order customers (including shopping malls, restaurants, hospitals, pharmacies, processing plants, C-end users, etc.).

However, due to the multiple circulation links and wide scope, the market has a stronger demand for cold chain logistics parks with concentrated industries and intensive functions.

Since 2008, China has successively introduced relevant policies to promote the development of cold chain logistics. In 2010, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Development Plan for Cold Chain Logistics of Agricultural Products", which was the first development plan for the cold chain logistics industry launched at the national level, opening the golden cycle of China's cold chain logistics development.