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Enterprise interview
*Article forwarded from the CFLP
Enterprise interview - the largest county-level cold chain logistics operator in China
Interviewee: Dickson Ho
President and CEO of ApacCold International Supply Chain Co., Ltd
In the past few decades, China's cold chain logistics industry has formed a perfect system in the southeast coastal and central regions, among which Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Shandong and other provincial capitals show a large-scale cold chain logistics enterprise cluster, and the economically underdeveloped inland and second- and third-tier cities are relatively backward in terms of resources. With the development of the economy, the improvement of consumption level, the gradual saturation of the cold chain logistics market in first-tier cities and economically developed areas, and the increasing oversupply of cold chain logistics infrastructure, the distribution of cold chain resources is sinking to the second and third tier cities. On the one hand, the storage capacity of new first-tier cities such as Qingbaijiang and Zhengzhou has increased significantly, and enterprises have begun to set their sights on second- and third-tier cities to seek new market opportunities; On the other hand, the demand for cold chain logistics services from residents and users in second- and third-tier cities is also gradually increasing.
In order to keep up with the policy direction of the national industry and meet the needs of the market environment, in recent years, ApacCold Group has been committed to pouring the foundation of cold chain logistics infrastructure construction in the core cities of Huaihai Economic Zone and the node cities of the new western land-sea corridor, and accelerating the cultivation of cold chain logistics markets in second-, third- and fourth-tier cities and counties. At present, it has become the exclusive operator of 15 origin banks in Suining County, Xuzhou City, and is committed to building this project into a multi-functional agricultural and food industrial park, sinking to the third and fourth tier towns of characteristic agricultural products, agricultural product trading markets, agricultural product production and processing enterprises, etc., and finally creating Suining County into the country's first cold chain county-wide full coverage benchmark demonstration county.
Up to now, the ApacCold Xuzhou Airport Cold Chain Logistics Center and 15 production warehouses in Suining County have a total temperature-controlled storage capacity of about 600,000 cubic meters, and have become the largest county-level cold chain logistics operator in the country.
Enterprise interview - Sink third- and fourth-tier cities to help agricultural development
Although China's cold chain logistics industry has developed rapidly under the promotion of policies during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the distribution of cold chain resources is still unbalanced, with resources in the eastern region occupying a large advantage and the western region being relatively scarce. In 2022, the number of cold chain logistics enterprises in China will increase to 2,227, mainly concentrated in East China, North China and South China, accounting for 32.7%, 16.2% and 13.3% respectively.
Therefore, under the dual role of policy promotion and market demand, China's cold chain logistics industry still needs to accelerate the pace of development, improve service quality and efficiency, in order to adapt to the changes in social production and consumer demand, and solve the problems of unbalanced regional development. At the same time, the government and enterprises also need to strengthen the investment and construction of cold chain logistics resources in the western region, gradually narrow the gap with the eastern region, and promote the balanced development of China's cold chain logistics industry.
As a professional cold chain operator, the national strategic deployment of ApacCold has focused on and successfully sunk to third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities, and through the strategy of "bringing in" and "going out", it has worked with local governments and enterprises to build a comprehensive cold chain logistics industrial park and empower rural revitalization. This replicable and promotable business model can cooperate with all provinces across the country to create a new chapter in the county-level temperature-controlled logistics system.
In the view of Dickson Ho, President and CEO of ApacCold International, the development of cold chain logistics needs to continuously optimize the top-level design, such as the "first kilometer" storage construction, which can help agricultural products maintain product quality and extend the shelf life through pre-cooling, packaging and storage at the origin of the product. However, the construction of warehousing in the production area is a typical asset-heavy format, with large investment scale, high operation and maintenance costs, and long return cycle.
The lag of landing support policies for land, electricity, and capital for cold chain logistics enterprises has led to the difficulty and high cost of land for cold chain logistics enterprises, and the difficulty and high cost of financing are still prominent. The lack of government budget, land, talent, management, technology and other resources for the construction and development of cold chain logistics in rural areas has delayed the development of cold chain logistics in the "first kilometer" production area. It is necessary for the government to guide, enterprises and the whole society to participate in cooperation to build the "first kilometer" of origin warehousing, and promote the modernization and rural revitalization of the cold chain logistics industry. The process also needs to be innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared with the new development concept, and take multiple measures to solve the substantive problems in the process of cold chain logistics construction, development and operation.
In the operation of 15 "first kilometer" origin banks in Suining County, Xuzhou City, ApacCold has also summarized many good ways to promote the development of origin banks, such as unified operation, centralized management, multi-party co-construction, and the application of emerging technologies, of course, the support of governments at all levels, the Department of Commerce, and the Rural Agriculture Bureau. As a cold chain logistics operation enterprise, ApacCold is strengthening the pilot project of refrigeration and fresh-keeping facilities in the "first kilometer" agricultural product producing areas, replicating the successful model of "first kilometer" cold chain logistics development to all provinces across the country, and making an excellent cold chain industry brand. Join hands with the government, state-owned enterprises and central enterprises to promote the integrated development of multiple industries, and realize the cold chain benefiting farmers, brand strong agriculture, and marketing rich farmers.
"The first kilometer" to help Pizhou garlic to the country
In terms of technology, ApacCold uses mobile cold storage technology to build cold storage in the field to achieve nearby storage and transportation, reduce the loss and waste of agricultural products in the transportation process, and improve the shelf life and market competitiveness of agricultural products. ApacCold and the professional team jointly developed a new generation of lightweight material mobile energy storage cabinet and put into use, this mobile energy storage cabinet does not use electricity, beyond the traditional diesel refrigeration, can solve the "first kilometer" cold chain logistics in the agricultural products are easy to deteriorate and rot in the process of transportation, but also save storage costs, improve management efficiency, save at least 50% of cooling costs, accurate temperature control and other advantages.
It can be seen that the large-scale development of cold chain logistics requires a large-scale operator with strong resources and strength to carry out unified management and operation. In terms of unified operation, the government can provide policy support and guidance to promote the standardization, standardization and modernization of the cold chain logistics industry. At the same time, the government can also encourage enterprises to invest in cold chain logistics through policy support, capital subsidies, tax incentives and other measures, improve the operational efficiency and service quality of cold chain logistics, and promote the development and upgrading of the cold chain logistics industry.
In addition to the layout of the "first kilometer", the ApacCold Xuzhou Airport Cold Chain Logistics Center and the 15 high-standard production warehouses ("1+15" multi-functional agricultural and food industrial parks) in Suining County, Xuzhou City are also relying on the airport logistics center and are accelerating the construction of "production center + processing center + sales center + multi-functional agricultural and food industrial park" As one of the innovative multi-functional industrial service chain, promote the deep integration and development of the industry, and strive to build Suining County into a typical county with a value of more than 10 billion yuan in the whole industrial chain, upgrade the agricultural industry, and promote the modernization and development of Suining County's agricultural industry to a new level.
ApacCold will also rely on the perfect cold chain supply chain system, based on the cold chain storage of the "1+15" project in Suining, Xuzhou, to smooth the cold chain microcirculation of fresh agricultural products and help the effective supply of agricultural and food products in Huaihai Economic Zone. In the future, it will also rely on the international supply chain channel, broaden the trade channels with the line and the surface, and actively build a direct procurement and direct supply system for agricultural products through the strategy of "bringing in" and "going out", eliminate many intermediate links in the traditional circulation model, and concentrate on solving the problems of poor sales and meager profits of agricultural products in the production area, so as to expand to the whole country, improve people's income and enhance market stability. Further improve the quality and market competitiveness of agricultural products, promote the realization of scale and branding, activate the great power of the era of urban-rural integration, and build a double guarantee for the circulation of agricultural products and the increase of farmers' income.
At present, ApacCold has expanded its cold chain logistics business, with an annual turnover increase of 50%-60%, and in just two years, the company's valuation has exceeded 100 million.
Enterprise interview - Trade + cold chain + logistics Provide international "one-stop" full-chain services
In addition to doing nodes and scale, cold chain logistics should also do trade. Cold chain warehousing is only a transit station node in the whole chain of the supply chain, production, cold chain logistics services, trade multi-sector combination, trade scale, the whole chain supply chain through and the integration of the development of the cold chain model is to achieve industrial upgrading, improve product competitiveness, meet the diversified needs of consumers, and promote sustainable economic development booster.
ApacCold is committed to building a perfect, efficient and green one-stop cold chain supply chain system in the Asia-Pacific region, advocating the cold chain warehousing in the production area to become a complete multi-functional agricultural and food industrial park and supply chain transfer station node, and the model of "direct supply + sales at the place of origin" to create industrial agglomeration, carry out production and marketing connection, agricultural supermarket docking, minimize circulation links, and make every effort to open up the "trade + cold chain + logistics" cross-border multimodal transport channel, and realize the large-scale circulation of global cold and fresh and agricultural products through the "sea, air, and rail" logistics network.
ApacCold will not forget its original intention, make every effort to cultivate the sinking market of "trade + cold chain + logistics", actively promote the construction of multimodal transport infrastructure at each node of the sea-land-road-rail in the new western land-sea corridor, and work together to create a new channel for efficient cold chain logistics, so as to truly benefit residents with preferential prices, realize cold chain benefits to the people, and strengthen agriculture with brands.
Since the epidemic, some countries have adopted trade barrier measures, such as setting up checkpoints and raising import thresholds, which has increased the difficulty and cost of China's food imports; At the same time, some countries have adopted trade protectionist measures, such as anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures for China's food ingredients, which have a certain impact on China's food exports.
The Belt and Road Initiative, the RCEP Agreement, the ASEAN Connectivity Master Plan 2025 and other policies and strategies have activated a new model of coordinated development of "trade + cold chain + logistics" between China and ASEAN countries, and broadened the sunny road to achieve seamless multimodal transport, trade and investment facilitation, and simplify cross-border trade rules and procedures. China-ASEAN cooperation in diversified industries such as agriculture, fishery, transportation, cold chain logistics, trade, and tourism has great development potential and strong resilience. ApacCold has always combined its development strategy with the general direction of national economic development, and contributed to the promotion of a new development pattern with the domestic cycle as the main body and the domestic and international dual cycles promoting each other.
As a professional company in cross-regional investment, operation and management, ApacCold is strategically based on the entire Asia-Pacific region. Promote the construction of cold chain logistics nodes along the "Belt and Road" and ASEAN countries, such as Brunei and Malaysia, as well as cooperate with Guangxi Qinzhou Port, Chongqing, Nanning, Guizhou and other nodes, and gradually build an international cold chain service chain to the central and western regions of China, the eastern growth zone of ASEAN, and RCEP countries with each node as the center, open up multinational trade, expand trade exchanges, and promote the large-scale economic development of western China and the eastern growth area of ASEAN.
At that time, ApacCold will rely on the company's multimodal transport channels in the Asia-Pacific region and the sinking cold chain food consumption market to comprehensively promote the "going out" of high-quality agricultural and fishery products, and fully realize the "introduction" of high-quality food resources such as global beef and mutton, fruit and vegetable agricultural products, and complementary aquatic products, so as to continue to release consumption vitality and increase consumption momentum.
Driven by RCEP, China's economic and trade cooperation with Southeast Asia and other regions has become closer, and the western region has further exerted its geographical advantages. We will speed up the construction of a new land-sea corridor in the western region, and give full play to the role of the western region as a link connecting the "Belt and Road" and the "One Road", deepen the two-way opening up of the land and sea, promote the large-scale development of the western region to form a new pattern, improve the level of interconnection with Southeast Asia and other regions, and further expand the opening up to the outside world and broaden the sunny avenue. ApacCold is making every effort to promote the construction of cold chain logistics nodes in RCEP countries and countries and cities in the main channel node of the new land-sea corridor in western China, actively releasing the development potential of domestic cold chain logistics node cities and countries along the route such as Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and other countries such as agriculture, fishery, characteristic industries, cross-border import and export trade, and cooperating with the high-quality development of international regions (such as Dongzeng District), and making every effort to open up the new logistics channel of "cold chain + logistics + trade" cross-border multimodal transport in the Asia-Pacific region through the "sea, air, and rail" logistics network to provide international" One-stop "full-chain service".
Based on the development of IoT, big data, artificial intelligence and other technologies, we will increase R&D investment in the ApacCold operation management system (ACOS) and strengthen technological innovation, so as to create a "strong engine" for the high-quality development of "one-stop" cold chain new logistics in the Asia-Pacific region, reduce operation and maintenance costs, and improve production efficiency and management level. At the same time, ApacCold is speeding up the preparation of the Western Land-Sea New Corridor Special Fund, which will invest in multimodal cold chain nodes, multi-functional cold chain logistics parks, cold chain equipment, mergers and acquisitions of related cold chain enterprises and parks, cold chain asset-light operation companies, cold chain transportation technology, cold chain refrigeration technology and cold chain traceability technology.
RCEP has an important impact on the economic development of the Asia-Pacific region, and the next few years will be an important period for the development of the cold chain of the new western land-sea corridor. In the short term, the strategic layout of the ApacCold will be based on the new western land-sea corridor and the Huaihai Economic Circle, fully integrate the cold chain supply chain resources that radiate 60% of the country and nearly 700 million people, build the cold chain logistics infrastructure of each node city, cast the corporate image of cold chain logistics operators, and carry out the core business of multi-stratosphere supply chain. At the same time, ApacCold will seize the bridgehead advantage of Qinzhou Port in Guangxi to connect China and RCEP countries, and open up a new two-way cross-border multimodal cold chain cold chain logistics channel that covers the new western land-sea corridor from Qinzhou to Chengdu, Chongqing, Nanning, Guizhou, Xi'an and other node cities and RCEP countries through the north and south.
Target
Referring to the company's future development goals,Dickson Ho said that ApacCold will complete the Pre-A round within this year, and will enter the ABC round from 2024, and plans to become a first-class cold chain logistics operator in China within 5 years to be successfully listed in the United States, Singapore or Hong Kong.