In 2015, vegetable production in China exceeded 700 million tons. Besides, large amounts of meat and frozen food are produced every year in China too. Temperature fluctuation in cold storage and transport is one of the main reasons for food quality decline. To ensure those perishable foods' freshness and quality, cold chain logistics is needed. If the shelf life of perishable products like vegetables and fruits was extended from one day to three days, fresh food retailers' loss would decrease 30%-50%.
By the end of 2014, China had a freezer capacity of about 120 million cubic meters and less than 60, 00 refrigerator vehicles, lagging far behind developed countries in per capital terms.
As a high-end sub-industry of logistics, cold chain logistics will become the focus of many investors in the next few years. As e-business develops in China, e-business enterprises operating fresh food are springing up and the supporting cold chain infrastructure. Many e-business companies in China have got into the field of fresh food, for example, large e-business enterprises like Tmall and JD have published their own fresh food strategy. Besides, logistics enterprises like SF Best of SF Express are conducting e-business and a bunch of professional fresh food e-business enterprises like Too Too Organic Farm are developing fast too. According to CRI's estimation, the market size of fresh food e-business was about CNY 100-120 billion and CAGR during the period of 2016-2020 will exceed 50%.
Fresh food e-business companies hardly invest cold chain equipment but they indirectly force the construction of cold chain distribution network. Currently, e-business enterprises like JD and Tmall are still weak in cold chain warehouse, logistics delivery system and door to door delivery in particular for they mainly cooperate with a third party, i.e. a cold chain logistics company.
