A report on the current situation of meat cold chain in China    Summer 2010

 

Meat is the necessities in people's daily life, and its development level is an important index to measure the improvement of people's living standard. In 1994 as a turning point, the growth rate of China's major meat products appears to be stable, people's consuming power began to exceed the world average and has remained ever since. In the past three years, the Chinese meat production kept growing at a rate of more than 5% annually. Benefit from the fact that China has the largest population in the world, the total meat production and consumption of China in recent years always ranks first in the world. In 2009, Chinese meat (pig, cattle, sheep, poultry and miscellaneous meat) production reached 76.42 million tons, which was 5% more than that of last year and was 57.3 kilograms per capita.

 

Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission published the "Cold Chain Logistics Development Planning of Agricultural Products". The plan put forward eight major projects, which will be the important areas of investment in the future. It is reported that among the eight major projects, 5 directly relate to the refrigeration equipment industry, which include: cold chain building project, refrigeration distribution center building project, cold chain transportation vehicles and refrigeration engineering, meat and aquatic products cold chain logistics engineering, and fruit and vegetable cold chain logistics engineering.

 

In Economic Information Broadcasting program on CCTV on July 28, a survey about the rising prices of vegetables was conducted. The survey said that the poor level of cold chain was the reason of the fluctuations of agricultural products, which cannot be ignored. It was reported that because of the lack or intermittent of cold chain, China experienced an up to 40 billion Yuan loss of food corrosion during transportation processes, and consumers will be forced to pay the bill of the loss in the end.

 

On the other hand, people pay more attention on product quality and quality safety when they make consumption on fresh food such as meat, seafood, fruits, vegetables, eggs, and dairy products. The value of cold chain is to ensure the "fresh baked" nutrition and safety when these food reach the end consumers.

 

Cold chain is one of the important ways to ensure meat quality safety. Because of the lack of meat cold chain equipment, the poor cold chain techniques, and the inadequate cold chain facilities, China has a great loss of meat product corrosion, which can do harm to people's health.

 

The report began with the introduction of the concepts of meat cold chain, and introduced the conditions of meat cold chain, the meat cold chain status in China and its problems, and then correspondingly provided some measures of development.

 

Report Introduction

 

In order to enhance the understanding level of Chinese cold meat market, the paper conducts a systematic analysis on the meat consumption market in China and the cold chain status. It also illustrates the impact of temperature on the meat products. In 2001 to 2009, China has 9 serious meat safety incidents. Merely in the third quarter of 2008, the poisoning death toll in China reached 68. Correspondingly, the meat cold chain only covered 10% of China. While in Europe, the United States, Germany and other countries, it reached more than 90%. It shows that the meat cold chain in China needs further improvement. By studying the different storage temperatures and the impact of temperature fluctuations on meat safety, nutrition and quality, we found that a continuous and stable low temperature environment is the key fact of meat quality. Temperature is closely related with the growth of microorganisms. When the temperature is between -26~-10C, there is nearly no growth of microorganisms. Between -10~3C, microorganisms, mainly food spoilage bacteria, grow slowly. When the temperature reaches above 3C, in addition to spoilage bacteria, some of the pathogenic bacteria begin growing in large quantities. The higher the temperature is, the faster the growth of microorganisms. Microbial growth can also lead to protein degradation, fat rancidity, which results in the loss of meat nutrition. While the cold fresh meat always stores in the 0~4C low-temperature environment, and has gone through the acid discharging, storage and transportation. It is the truly safe meat, and therefore gets the strong promotion of the country. Focusing on the transportation process which can easily cause problems, Ingersoll Rand provides a group of targeted solutions based on different transportation distances. They comprehensively ensure that the meat cold chain is safe, efficient and comfortable.