Twenty years of cold chain

Hu Shutong accompanied Liang Lu on a walk around the park, sharing a lot of practical information with him along the way.

The layouts of cold chain parks are largely similar. In the visible areas, operational efficiency is the most intuitive thing, and all traffic flow within the park serves this purpose, whether between functional areas or within each functional area.

The real competitiveness of cold chain industrial parks in the current era

In fact, many of these innovations are found in unseen areas, such as the application of intelligent transportation technology, screening technology that reduces human intervention, and the use of various materials in cold storage.

Liang Lu realized that in the past, cold chain parks could easily attract attention by achieving scale, with "quantity" being a major standard. However, cold chain companies that only focus on scale and ignore technology will only gradually walk into a dead end.

The term "ignoring technology" here does not mean not using technology.

Rather, they failed to recognize the profound changes that technological advancements have brought to the cold chain. The market is a double-edged sword; it can be wielded brilliantly and used to one's advantage, but it can also be wielded more skillfully by others, leading to defeat in the competition.

Some established industrial parks are still clinging to the outdated notion that having warehouses and trucks is enough for a complete cold chain operation—a fatal misconception. With the current cold chain infrastructure largely solidified, where does the most powerful weapon lie? It's technology.

Hu Shutong has a deeper understanding of this. Technological changes are driven not only by the needs of the industry itself, but also by the urging of international trends. As we entered the second decade of the 21st century, the global climate issue has become more prominent than ever before.

The cold chain industry involves numerous chemical materials and emissions issues, and high efficiency, energy conservation, and environmental protection are major topics that our country is focusing on. More energy-efficient and environmentally friendly new cold chain equipment will usher in a period of rapid development; this is a "must-learn" lesson in the development of the cold chain industry, just like other industries.

The era of solely pursuing output value is gone forever.

Taking polyurethane blowing agents as an example, the first-generation blowing agent chlorofluorocarbon F11 has been proven to be the most perfect blowing agent for polyurethane.

However, due to the Montreal Protocol, chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) blowing agents have been completely replaced due to their environmental pollution. Currently, hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) can only be used domestically as a transitional measure, but environmental problems still exist, and they will be replaced again before 2020.

Technological advancements and the rapid pace of modern life are inextricably linked to the cold chain, which may be precisely where the difficulty lies in becoming a leading player in this field. We have many gaps that we haven't filled yet, such as a lack of talent, standards, and self-discipline. However, we must take a holistic view, remain vigilant and look ahead, and maintain a keen understanding of the technology.

The cold chain is still about "cold" and "chain," but every time it takes a step forward, it must have a conscious awareness of integrating into the chain.

On a bright spring morning, the last chill of winter had dissipated, willows were sprouting new buds, and a warm breeze was blowing.

Two cars were driving towards Tongxing. Luan Pingxin was sitting in one of the cars, leading a team from Qingyan Refrigeration.

Each of them is a highly skilled and capable individual. This isn't just about holding a meeting; it's about moving into Tongxing and doing something significant together.

Luan Pingxin knew Tongxing's R&D center inside and out.

In the past two years, he has mostly done some planning and taken on some targeted orders, which is far from enough in Luan Pingxin's opinion.

It's not that she didn't do these things, but from her perspective, they were far removed from the concept of "research and development." Moreover, even if she produced the most outstanding plan, all she would get in the end was some commission and praise from the client, which did not bring any substantial change to Tongxing's situation.

Luan Pingxin was planning a path to a famous patent. She had thought about many things before, and with the establishment of the industry's general direction of "green, emission reduction, energy conservation, and sustainable development," she felt that the best opportunity had arrived.

Where should Tongxing R&D Center focus its efforts?

It's a product!

In other words, by making energy-saving and environmentally friendly new cold chain equipment the main focus of its R&D center, Tongxing cannot become the manufacturer. However, Tongxing can sell its technology patents and hand over the R&D results to various cold chain equipment manufacturers for implementation. The returns from a park planning proposal and a core technology patent are on completely different levels; Tongxing can even take a cut of sales.

Given the current situation, what Tongxing lacks most is money, Luan Pingxin bluntly stated. For example, the funding from the eight support measures for cold chain logistics in Yuncheng's Xizhen No. 2 plot, from land acquisition to construction and operation, is simply insufficient. In the face of such a surging real estate boom, the cost of building a cold chain logistics facility in the suburbs of a major city is evident from the comparison of land prices ten years ago with those now.

Moreover, in order to achieve the goal of the first kilometer, Hu Shutong has been contracting a large number of wholesale markets in production areas for more than a year, and the expenditure on renovation has become a major flow of Tongxing's funds.

These days, cold chain companies that have laid a solid foundation in advance are all seeking financing and mergers and acquisitions, which can be described as a quick and easy way to reap the benefits. By expanding the business together, the company can make more money, and investors can profit more. However, she did not see any such intention in Hu Shutong.

So where will the money come from? Let's try to find a solution from a technical perspective.

As for what kind of technological investment would be most profitable, Luan Pingxin already had an idea: to find the biggest demand in the market, like Hengwenku, which is highly targeted and essentially belongs to point-based research and development.

This time, the focus is on cold chain equipment. In short, we're starting with equipment that's widely used in the market and aligns with the trends of technological innovation and energy conservation. Such products represent the biggest business opportunity!

Luan Pingxin's ultimate goal is not only to gain the recognition of equipment companies, but also to create a market space for large-scale mass production.

Moreover, this will be an ongoing project because there is still a large technological gap in this field, and there is much more potential than what she is currently considering.

While there are certainly technical challenges, the people at Tongxing R&D Center are also formidable, in addition to their own team. Given time, they will surely achieve great results!

When the people at Tongxing R&D Center learned that Luan Pingxin had come to oversee things, they all became extremely alert. They had all heard that this was a technical powerhouse who even General Manager Hu might not be able to beat in an arm wrestling match!

……

I've loved cold chain logistics for twenty years.