30% of fruits and vegetables are wasted in transportation, why is cold chain transportation important?

As the quality level of people's daily life improves, the demand for food quality and freshness is getting higher and higher, and cold chain logistics has attracted widespread attention.

According to statistics, 60% of fruits and vegetables are sold in season every year, and the remaining 35%-40% need to be refrigerated. Cold chain logistics plays a very important role in the circulation of fruits and vegetables,cold chain which is an important influencing factor to ensure the quality of fruits and vegetables and stabilize the economic price of fruits and vegetables market.

Cold chain logistics refers to the production, storage and transportation of refrigerated and frozen food in the production, sales to the consumption of various links are always in the provisions of the low-temperature environment,cold warehouse in order to ensure the quality of food, reduce food loss of a systematic project.

Cold chain logistics of fruit and vegetable agricultural products refers to make fruits and vegetables always under suitable low temperature control environment after picking in processing, storage, transportation, circulation, sales and other links. That is, fruits and vegetables from leaving the field to the consumer before the table are in the "cold chain", the complete cold chain to form a closed-loop, in order to maximize food quality, reduce food loss of a systematic project.

National Agricultural Products Preservation Engineering and Technology Research Center found that China's annual production of fruits and vegetables from the field to the table, the loss rate of up to 25% to 30%. The loss rate of fruits and vegetables in developed countries is generally controlled below 5%, the United States fruits and vegetables in the freshness of the logistics link loss rate of only 1% to 2%.

Fruit and vegetable cold chain logistics to do the best is the United States. The United States has established a vegetable cold chain circulation system, in a relatively perfect national vegetable production division of labor system, the establishment of a traceability system and the whole cold chain distribution. Post-harvest pre-cooling in the field, cold storage, refrigerated truck transportation, wholesale station cold storage, supermarket freezers, consumer refrigerators form a complete cold chain chain. Secondly, Canada's fruit and vegetable pre-cooling technology, vacuum pre-cooling technology and ice temperature pre-cooling technology, effectively eliminating field heat, reducing the respiratory strength of vegetables, prolonging the freshness of vegetables.

Fruits and vegetables have a large water content, the cells all the time do not carry out anaerobic respiration to release heat, coupled with the decomposition of the surface bacteria and protease decomposition, the quality of the time will slowly decay. Therefore, fruits and vegetables need to be frozen and refrigerated, and the quality of fruits and vegetables can be guaranteed through the cold chain logistics system.

Fruit and vegetable cold chain logistics includes fruit and vegetable products harvesting, pretreatment processing, packaging, transportation, storage, distribution, sales and other links, which form a chain between them, constituting a complete system. Its purpose is to ensure that fruits and vegetables from the field to the hands of consumers to maintain the quality of fresh, good quality.

In the past, when cold chain logistics was not yet developed, fruits and vegetables suffered huge losses in the cold chain process. Not only the quality is damaged, a large number of fruits and vegetables loss also caused environmental pollution. One of the main reasons for this was the lack of transparency in the flow of information throughout the cold chain. Nowadays, the cold chain logistics is developing rapidly, and the Internet of Things (IoT) technology is commonly used in the cold chain logistics of fruits and vegetables. This can realize the transparency of information between the supervisory department, fruit and vegetable cold chain logistics enterprises and consumers, and achieve the purpose of inquiring, supervising and tracking the various links of fruit and vegetable cold chain logistics, thus significantly reducing the loss rate of fruits and vegetables.

Combined with the distribution of China's advantageous fruit and vegetable producing areas and the flow characteristics of south vegetable transportation to the north, west fruit transportation to the east, fruit and vegetable import and export, we should build economical, energy-saving, environmentally friendly, green and efficient warehousing and preservation facilities according to the local conditions to prolong the sales cycle and improve the level of anti-seasonal sales. At the same time, we should strengthen the construction of supporting cold chain facilities, and promote the construction of a cold chain logistics system for fruits and vegetables in the whole process from the advantageous production areas to the main marketing areas, such as anti-seasonal vegetables, plateau summer vegetables, tropical fruits, and so on. Promote the application of mobile cold storage and pre-cooling facilities, rationalize the layout of plug-in devices, and strengthen the efficient linkage of mobile cold chain facilities and equipment with cold chain distribution centers of origin. Improve the "first kilometer" cold chain supporting facilities for fruits and vegetables, and support the use of recyclable packaging and carriers suitable for the characteristics of fruits and vegetables. Enhance the level of commercialization and processing of agricultural products at the place of origin, build or renovate pre-cooling facilities at the place of origin, and equip facilities and equipment for washing, grading, sorting, cutting and packaging of fruits and vegetables. Encourage the extensive use of cold chain facilities for fruit and vegetable preservation, and significantly reduce the use of preservation drugs. Promote the integration of commercialized packaging and cold-chain packaging, and improve supporting functions such as dehydration and drying, weighing and packaging, inspection and testing, low-loss transportation and quality control, so as to improve the capacity of commercialized processing of fruits and vegetables at the place of origin, and reduce the loss of circulation.