The source of the new outbreak needs to be resolved. Is cold chain logistics still reliable

The source of the new outbreak needs to be resolved. Is cold chain logistics still reliable

The origin of the epidemic in Beijing Xinfadi Wholesale Market is still an unsolved mystery.

　　 However, the cold chain has been regarded as a "suspect" from day one. Since then, more and more flow adjustment results have shown that more environmental samples in the aquatic product hall and beef and mutton hall of Xinfadi Wholesale Market have tested positive for the new coronavirus. Among those who have been diagnosed with new coronary pneumonia, aquatic products sales personnel have the most and the earliest cases.

A number of experts recently interviewed by the okmarts.com reporter said that the final investigation of the epidemic situation in the new place has not been completed, and it has not been determined that the new crown virus has entered the new place market through cold chain logistics. But experts also pointed out that the low temperature environment created for preservation may create opportunities for the survival of the new coronavirus.

　　According to the latest data from the Cold Chain Logistics Professional Committee of the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (hereinafter referred to as the "China Federation of Things Cold Chain Committee"), in 2019, the total national demand for cold chains reached 233.08 million tons. Is this industry that feeds more than 1 million logistics personnel and allows people to get more happiness from the table. Is it the culprit of the epidemic? What risks are still hidden? How will it change after the epidemic?

　　A discussion set off by a chopping board

　　 After 56 days of calm, on June 11, Beijing suddenly reported a confirmed case of new coronary pneumonia. Mr. Tang, a 52-year-old patient, clearly recalled his trajectory in the past 10 days, especially his purchase experience about Xinfadi, which helped the transfer personnel quickly locate Xinfadi, the largest agricultural and sideline product wholesale market in Asia. It may have a strong correlation with the patient being infected.

　　 On the morning of June 12, the beef and mutton trading hall and the seafood hall of Xinfadi Market were closed, and the flow personnel began to intensively enter the Xinfadi wholesale market for sampling.

　　 A report in the evening said that Zhang Yuxi, chairman of Xinfadi Wholesale Market, told the media that the new crown virus was detected on the cutting board of imported salmon.

　　 At 3 o'clock on June 13, the relevant departments of Fengtai District, Beijing announced that Xinfadi Wholesale Market was temporarily closed. And the discussion among the people about whether eating salmon will be infected with the new crown virus has exploded.

　　 Guan Yi, director of the State Key Laboratory of Emerging Infectious Diseases of the University of Hong Kong and director of the Influenza Research Center, told the media that in the case of Xinfadi, cold chain transmission or people entering the market caused transmission, both possibilities exist.

　　 Guan Yi said that the spread of the new coronavirus through the cold chain is not new. He even pointed out that this possibility is the greatest. There has been no shortage of such examples: Many slaughterhouses in Europe and the United States have outbreaks of the new crown virus, and 60% of the crew on the USS Theodore Roosevelt tested positive for antibodies to the new crown virus. Guan Yi believes that the aircraft carrier that has not docked for several months has also been infected, and the cold chain may have played the role of spreader.

According to Li Fengqin, director of the Microbiology Laboratory of the National Center for Food Safety Risk Assessment, the World Health Organization has made it clear that the new crown virus is mainly spread through the respiratory tract, droplets and close contact. All foods, including seafood, will not be infected with the new crown virus, but exist. The possibility of contamination.

"So far, no cases of food transmission of new coronary pneumonia have been found at home and abroad." Li Fengqin mentioned, "If the new coronavirus contaminates food or food packaging, it cannot multiply on the surface of food and food packaging materials and survive at room temperature. The time is also relatively short. But at low temperatures, the new coronavirus can survive for a long time. Therefore, it is not ruled out that low-temperature refrigerated food and food packaging materials as virus carriers may cause the new coronavirus to pollute the environment and cause transmission."

　　 Wu Zunyou, chief expert of epidemiology at the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that the daily collection of biological samples containing the virus by researchers is also stored at low temperatures. The lower the temperature, the longer the virus can survive. Many seafood in the wholesale market are stored frozen. Under such an environment, the virus is easier to survive and the chance of infecting people is higher.

　　 As for the upper limit of survival time, there is no conclusion yet. Academician Li Lanjuan said that under normal circumstances, viruses can survive in the cold chain for a long time. Viruses known and mastered by humans can survive for more than 36 months at about 4°C, and can survive for a long time up to about 20 years below minus 20°C.

　　 Li Lanjuan said that the new coronavirus is a new virus that has only appeared for 8 months, and further research is needed on its understanding and low temperature tolerance.

　　 Lan Hongjie, a professor at the School of Economics and Management of Beijing Jiaotong University, has devoted himself to cold chain logistics management research for many years. She believes that there are two main possibilities for the outbreak in the new place: the virus enters the new place through contaminated items, or is brought to the new place by infected people, especially those with mild or asymptomatic infections. But to get the final and accurate conclusion, more sample collection and investigation are needed.

　　Manual links may be contaminated

　　 According to Qin Yuming, Secretary-General of the Cold Chain Committee of the China Federation of Things, my country's cold chain logistics only made a qualitative leap during the 2008 Olympics. The first cold chain plan issued by the National Development and Reform Commission in 2010 led to the popularization of the cold chain concept. In recent years, a national warehouse and distribution network layout in the cold chain industry has gradually formed.

　　 Qin Yuming said that since 2018, the nation's cold chain demand has exploded. In an interview with okmarts.com, a person from the Cold Chain Committee of the China Internet of Things mentioned that in recent years, the demand for cold chain logistics has developed by leaps and bounds. Compared with 2014, the total demand for the cold chain has increased by 153% in 2019.

　　 Food is the main object of cold chain logistics. Lan Hongjie said that the industry has developed "faster than GDP growth." Whether it is salmon from Norway or tropical fruits from Hainan, they are transported to all parts of the country by cold chain.

She gave an example of the role of the cold chain: “Beijing needs 2.5 tons of vegetables, 1,850 tons of pork, 2,500 tons of rice, 3,750 tons of noodles, and 800 tons of eggs every day. 80% of these come from other provinces and cities and require temperature control. Beijing has 11 A slaughterhouse, the original number is 14. "At the moment you don’t know it, you may have eaten cold chain food.

A plate of salmon sashimi from the place of production to the dining table must go through "pre-cooling of origin-wholesale market of origin / cold storage assembly-distribution center-wholesale market of sales place-retail store (front warehouse)-fresh pick up point / self pick up counter "A series of processes.

"Several main links include transportation, storage, packaging, loading and unloading, processing, distribution and other steps." Lan Hongjie introduced, "Generally, it is not easy to have loopholes at a fixed point. When loading and unloading, packaging, and distribution processing, if It is artificial and may be contaminated."

　　 The cold chain logistics industry is developing rapidly, but the supporting facilities such as supervision and standards are far from perfect.

　　 A fruit merchant who has been purchasing goods in Xinfadi for many years said that many large wholesale markets are not strict in sampling agricultural products. Most of them use simple instruments to check for pesticide and heavy metal residues. Merchants are looking for cold chain logistics, and they are also used to finding which one is cheaper. "Those shippers' health certificates are not guaranteed for everyone."

　　 There is also a food safety risk from "cold chain broken", that is, it is not transported and stored at the specified temperature throughout the process. Foods such as aquatic products, vegetables, fruits, dairy products, and meat require different temperatures.

　　In large farmer's markets, the process of loading, unloading and handling is still far from fully automated, and in the end, the last step is completed by relatively cheap labor.

　　 Lan Hongjie inspected dozens of cold chain-related logistics companies, as well as supermarkets and farmer markets in wholesale and retail links, and concluded that it is very difficult to implement a strict cold chain throughout the entire food life cycle.

　　 And this problem, in recent years, almost every article that talks about the immature development of cold chain logistics will be pointed out in a prominent position. The Cold Chain Committee of the China Federation of Things pointed out in the "China Cold Chain Logistics Development Report (2019)" that there are five major problems in the cold chain logistics industry: cold chain infrastructure in some areas is unbalanced; most agricultural products are produced in the first kilometer of the cold chain. "Insufficient supporting facilities; cold storage in first-tier cities is in short supply, but there are signs of excess in third-tier cities.

　　 People who don’t understand the cold chain will be curious. They just stuff food into various types of "large refrigerators". What is the investment besides electricity bills and "large refrigerators".

　　 In fact, the cold chain is not a simple process of using foam boxes and ice bags to transport goods from the place of production to the market. For example, in the cold storage, a "cold processing" must be completed in accordance with the process, and the refrigerated and frozen items must be separated, and finally put into the cold storage "large refrigerator" cooling room and freezing room. The refrigerated truck also has a refrigeration unit and an insulated compartment. The products have LTL and vehicle transportation. LTL is similar to the “carpooling" of goods. How to prevent the products from contaminating each other and how to get the “passengers" of the “carpooling" together as soon as possible is also a test. When I walked to consumers, the reason why most of the time is ice packs and foam boxes is because the problem of the "last mile" of cold chain distribution has not been solved, so I chose the traditional method.

　　How can cold chain logistics be safer

　　 According to reports, the gene sequence of the virus detected in Xinfadi Market is relatively similar to the gene sequence of the European virus that is currently public. This discovery pushed the speculation that cold chain logistics brought foreign contaminated goods into the domestic vegetable market to a higher degree.

　　According to the forecast of the American Food Association, the average annual growth rate of China's imported food consumption will remain above 15%. In 2019, China has become the largest food importer.

　　 The first line of defense for foreign food entering the country is customs. According to the Cold Chain Committee of the China Federation of Things, China Customs has complete and strict safety prevention and control measures. There are "three customs" to ensure the quality and safety of imported food, including the "access customs" of countries and regions that export food to China, and the production of food exported to China. "Registration customs" for enterprises and "registration customs" for importers and exporters of food to China.

　　 These checkpoints have continued to operate since the outbreak of COVID-19. Since June 17, China Customs has suspended the export of products from a German pork slaughter, segmentation, and cold storage company to China because this pork slaughter company confirmed that a cluster of new crown virus infections occurred. Due to the recent occurrence of a cluster of new crown pneumonia infections among employees of Tyson in the United States, since June 21, the General Administration of Customs has also suspended the import of the company’s poultry slaughter products into China.

　　 Song Yueqian, deputy director of the Health and Quarantine Department of the General Administration of Customs, introduced that since February this year, some customs have begun sampling nucleic acid tests on some commodities, and the results are all negative. At present, the national customs are carrying out new coronavirus risk monitoring on fresh cold chain products from countries and regions with high epidemic risk.

　　 Lan Hongjie mentioned that this new outbreak of the epidemic reminds us that we should formulate a logistics transformation and upgrade plan for the wholesale market and do a good job in food safety testing. We must strictly control food safety through the wholesale market.

Lan Hongjie mentioned that the upgrading and transformation of logistics facilities and equipment and the transformation of cold storage should be done; in particular, the level of informatization should be improved, and big data should be used to ensure the traceability of the entire food process; various national standards and standards on cold chain and food safety should be Resolute implementation of local standards, etc.

　　 "The standards are currently being formulated very fast and the industry is developing very fast, but the implementation is not in place." Lan Hongjie said.

The Cold Chain Committee of the China Federation of Things suggests that the current cold chain logistics standard system in China is not sound, the standards involve a wide range of technologies, many management departments, and coordination between all parties is difficult, resulting in repeated contradictions in the formulation process, and the promotion and implementation effects after release are not obvious , Lack of efficient standardization coordination and promotion mechanism and other issues. Different industry standards lack compatibility and cohesion in operating links.

According to the researchers, my country's cold chain logistics is still in the initial stage of development, and there is still a large gap between Japan, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Canada in terms of standardization.

　　In the face of the epidemic, there is an organic crisis. The Cold Chain Committee of the China Federation of Things put forward 12 suggestions to promote the growth of the cold chain logistics industry, which mentioned that it should take this opportunity to strengthen the safety protection in the cold chain logistics process, promote intensive management, and reduce the contact between people and goods; It is necessary to enhance the organization and digital capabilities of enterprises, and use technology to promote the industry to complete the traceability and visualization of the entire process, and to better conduct resource scheduling.

Many experts have emphasized on multiple occasions that, in the final analysis, the polluted environment wants to cause people to get sick because the body parts contacting the pollutants touched the mouth and nose, and the implementation of personal protective measures such as wearing masks and frequent hand washing. problem.