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What is the "cold chain" these days?

cold chain

Let the food corruption is bacteria. They are usually very active in the 4 ℃ -60 ℃ interval, especially 35 ℃ -37 ℃, just the temperature of people's internal organs, but also Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus and other optimal growth temperature.cold chain But once below 4 ℃, bacterial proliferation slowed down significantly, so the low temperature will significantly curb the vast majority of bacteria.

Viruses, on the other hand, are different. Viruses do not freeze to death at low temperatures, such as minus 10 degrees Celsius. In general, the lower the temperature, the longer the virus survives. If a virus is placed in an environment of -180 degrees Celsius, such as liquid nitrogen,cold warehouse it may survive for decades or even hundreds of years. Low temperatures provide a good space for viruses to survive.

What is the cold chain?

According to the relevant definition, cold chain refers to a special supply chain system in which products are processed, stored, transported, distributed and retailed from the place of harvesting or fishing to the hands of consumers, and all its links are always in the low-temperature environment necessary for the products to ensure product quality and safety, reduce wastage and prevent contamination.

The concept is a bit abstract, let's observe the physical equipment needed from the cold chain. First of all, the product should be quick-freezing equipment for frozen freshness, and then be stocked in the cold storage, there is a need to be loaded into the refrigerated containers on board the ship for long-distance transportation, or the nearest refrigerated trucks pulled out and delivered to various shopping malls in the freezer. In this way, the product in the protection of each device, all the way in the low temperature of the fresh state, forming a complete "chain".

Cold chain transportation of products, roughly food (fruits and vegetables, meat, aquatic products, frozen food, etc.), medicine (vaccines, blood supplies, etc.) and chemicals (precision instruments, etc.) three categories. Among them, pharmaceuticals and chemicals together account for less than 10%, and food alone accounts for 90%.

Cold chain in extension

Despite the expansion of both the cold storage and refrigerated truck markets, China's cold chain is not considered developed. China's logistics industry is globally renowned for its convenience and efficiency, but the share of food cold chain only accounts for less than 3%, which is at a very low level.

China's cold chain started late, the earliest start in the 1950s, when the cold chain equipment was mainly some modified insulated trucks, and the development was slow for quite a long time thereafter until the promulgation of the Food Hygiene Law in 1982, which to a certain extent pushed forward the development of China's cold chain logistics industry. In the following 20 years, due to the fact that the supply is always less than the demand, the development of cold chain logistics in China has been slow, and the level is always in the primary stage. It was only in about 2007 that some cold chain business started, and there was no word "cold chain" in the name of the company established at that time, and most of them were named as "low temperature" and "cold storage".

Compared with some countries, China's per capita cold storage capacity is low, the number of refrigerated trucks is small, the circulation of the turnover link is cumbersome and the food loss rate is high. Only the world's top 25 cold storage this indicator is better than Japan, but this is also based on the premise that our country is larger than Japan.

Next, with the emergence of the new crown vaccine, vaccine transportation on the cold chain logistics will further increase the reliance on the "cold chain" this market to be tapped is still a huge potential.

cold chain quick-freezing equipment frozen freshness

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