Asia Cold: Determined to be the leading cold chain industry operator in Asia

Min News

At present, with the increase of national income level and the improvement of living standards, people’s requirements for food freshness also increase. The increased awareness of this consumption upgrade has promoted the growth of the cold storage market, and cold chain logistics has also ushered in a golden period of development. “On June 20, Liu Xize, president and founder of Beijing Yaleng International Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Asia Cold”), proposed in an interview with a reporter from “China Logistics and Purchasing” magazine.

According to Liu Xize, Asia Cold, which has been established for 8 years, has 21 large and medium-sized professional fresh cold chain parks in 14 key cities across the country, with an operation and management area of ​​about 600,000 square meters, serving production, trade, retail, and cold chain logistics. Industry customers provide efficient and professional services, and the business scope covers North China, East China, Central China, South China, Southwest China and other regions. At the beginning of last year, Asia Cold received financing support from Hillhouse Capital, and thus gained widespread attention in the industry.

Three core competencies to lay a solid foundation

In 2014, Liu Xize founded Asia Cold. Since then, the company has gradually formed six major product segments, including food cold storage, frozen quick-freezing storage, customized large-scale cold storage, pharmaceutical cold storage, room temperature fresh-keeping storage and cold storage construction. Since its establishment, the development of Asia Cold has been smooth and smooth. It has successively reached agreements with leading and well-known corporate customers such as Alibaba Digital Agriculture, SF Express, JD Cold Chain, Meituan Select, Xianpinda, Daily Excellent Fresh, and Zhongfu Express. Cooperation.

Referring to the company’s core competitiveness, Liu Xize introduced three aspects. One is cost control. In fact, Liu Xize, who was born in 1984, is a “second generation of things”. His father started cold chain transportation as early as 30 years ago. Having been immersed in her experience since childhood, and joining her father’s company to work as an adult, Liu Xize has accumulated rich industry resources and cost control experience before founding Yalleng, so she can naturally formulate cost-effective solutions in procurement. The second is customer acquisition ability. This is also due to the advantages of network resources accumulated by his family in the industry for many years, and after the establishment of Asia Cold, it has continued to accumulate various resources, and the ability to acquire customers has been further improved and enhanced. The third is team fighting ability. As a young leader, Liu Xize himself leads a group of young teams mainly born in the 1980s, and has strong combat capabilities. The characteristics and advantages of the three aspects have allowed Asia Cold to quickly gain a firm foothold in the cold chain market and quickly gain a place in it.

In addition, Liu Xize also saw that technological progress is the fundamental driving force for the development of the cold chain industry, and it is also the core guarantee for the high-quality development of cold chain logistics. “While providing personalized services, we have always sought innovation in technology. Now we have a central computer room, which can understand all hardware-related parameters of all cold storages in the country in real time, such as pressure, temperature, etc., and refrigeration engineers monitor the country in real time. The operating status of all cold storages can be dynamically adjusted if problems are found.” But there is still a gap with Liu Xize’s goal. “I hope to truly realize the automatic learning of the software system and truly realize unattended operation. This innovation is still on the way.” He revealed that at present, Asia Cold is distributed in each park all over the country, and at least three staff are needed to maintain the on-site duty of three shifts, “If we can achieve unattended, we can save more labor costs.”

Build temperature protection for “618”

During the recent “618” e-commerce promotion, the export volume of fresh products such as e-commerce fruit, seafood, beef and mutton increased significantly. In order to ensure fresh arrival, “local delicacies” put forward higher requirements for cold storage storage conditions.

At present, Asia Cold has 21 high-standard cold storages in 14 cities across the country, all of which are adjustable in high and low temperature, covering hundreds of commodity categories and tens of thousands of commodities . In the 618 promotion, Asia Cold made various preparations in advance according to the storage requirements of customers, including providing customers with safe cold storage storage guarantee: Selecting various professionals with excellent technology and in-depth understanding of the market to form a special team, Special improvements have been made in cold storage operation and maintenance management, central computer room control, customer service, and technical support. It is understood that as early as May, Asia Cold has completed the comprehensive operation, maintenance and adjustment of its cold storage systems in various warehouses across the country. According to customer needs and shipping characteristics, it accurately implements the temperature and maintenance frequency of each warehouse to meet different customers. Diversified and personalized needs.

During the “618” promotion period, due to the significant increase in the use of cold storage, Asia Cold has also optimized in terms of reducing the heat load of the cold storage, improving the working efficiency of the refrigeration system, defrosting the evaporation equipment, and adjusting the evaporation temperature to ensure manual services and intelligentization. With the cooperation of the operating system, the cold storage can better achieve energy saving and emission reduction.

In addition to providing high-standard cold storage, Asia Cold also focuses on improving customer experience. Liu Xize said that cold chain is a heavy asset project, and national layout, standardized technical support, and customized services are the core barriers in this field. “But it’s far from enough to do this. Whether it’s the early design of the cold storage or the later operation, the first thing to consider is the user’s feelings. The purpose of the automated operation department of Asia Cold is to improve the efficiency of the use of the warehouse.” He further introduced that the company From the customer’s point of view, aiming at customer pain points such as large warehouse storage in urban areas, full insurance safety storage, and full temperature adjustment, we constantly improve cold storage products and set up triple safety guarantees: First, the scientific design of cold storage allows full temperature adjustment. ; Second, the temperature of each warehouse in the country under the control of the central computer room can be adjusted with one button; the third is 24-hour property service and equipment operation and maintenance service guarantee . This series of practices enables Asia Cold to not only provide safe and stable storage services under normalization, but also provide guarantees during the 618 and other e-commerce promotions.

Be more cautious in investment decisions

“In the early stage of the outbreak, although a large number of offline stores were closed, the sales of online e-commerce customers will increase, and the demand for cold storage will also increase, which will have a limited impact on our company’s operations.” Liu Xize explained that the epidemic continued for more than two years. Since then, the impact on the general economic environment has also suppressed consumer demand to a certain extent. Specifically, the epidemic has affected the income of some residents and thus reduced expenditures, reducing the demand for high value-added food, resulting in a decline in the demand for cold storage by e-commerce. Therefore, in general, the epidemic will inevitably have an impact on the cold chain industry.

In this market environment, the market price of cold storage rentals has dropped across the board, including first-tier cities in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. According to industry insiders, the rental price of high-standard cold storage has dropped from 4.5 yuan per square meter per day last year to less than 4 yuan (currently the actual transaction price is only about 3.8 yuan). While the supply is increasing, the demand is declining, which has also led to a decline in the full rate of cold storage .

“In this context, Asia Cold needs to be more cautious when making investment decisions.” However, Liu Xize also said, ” Although acquisitions need to be more cautious at this time, there are actually opportunities for expansion. ” For example, some peers or Some cold storages made by new entrants may fail to operate or become unfinished projects due to various reasons, bringing some opportunities for low-cost expansion.

In Liu Xize’s view, with the consumption upgrade of the food market, the cold chain logistics industry will show a long-term positive development trend. He is determined to build Asia Cold into the largest and most technologically advanced cold storage product and service provider in the cold chain industry in Asia, and in general, the leading cold chain industry operator in Asia. In order to achieve this goal as soon as possible, while Asia Cold plans to become bigger and stronger, it hopes to achieve the goal of listing within five years and reach a new level of development. (This article is published in the 13th issue of “China Logistics and Purchasing” magazine in 2022)