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Make the Goods Talk and Use Data to Help the Cold Chain Industry Take off, QIn Na from Humapback Whale Company

'A ride on the red dust, the concubine smiles, no one knows it is the lychee comes.'

The transportation of fresh goods, since ancient times is a problem. Subject to the limitations of the level of technology and other factors, the old days only the emperor and the powerful can enjoy the poet Du Mu pen this kind of treatment.

Nowadays, the rise of cold chain logistics has sent this convenience into thousands of households and become one of the most closely related forms of logistics to people's daily lives.

In recent years, along with China's gradual entry into the era of e-commerce, the development of the cold chain logistics industry has also taken off along with the great increase in demand for the transportation of fresh food, pharmaceuticals and other goods.

However, even in the highly developed technology nowadays, it is not an easy task to do a good job in cold chain logistics. According to statistics, in the field of fresh food, there is usually a loss of up to 30% in the cold chain logistics, which leads to great waste and economic loss. And because of the special nature of pharmaceutical goods, it is not allowed to have a little mistake in transportation.

So, how to monitor whether the items are stable at the specified temperature and humidity throughout the transportation process? How to know more about the status of the goods in real time? What is the development situation of China's cold chain industry? Is there a new way to solve the cold chain problem?

Humpback Whale (Shanghai) Information Technology Ltd. is a long term IoT intelligent data operation service company focusing on 'digitalization of origin and full cold chain', and is a rising 'star' in this field. So, with the above questions, we had an in-depth conversation with Qin Na, a partner of Humpback Whale.

Farewell to the wild growth, the cold chain industry is going into standardization

Qin Na is deeply impressed by the changes in the cold chain industry in recent years. She believes that with the progress of technology and rich demand, the 'informationization' of the cold chain industry is becoming a major trend of the industry.

'The cold chain information technology has developed from the initial market cultivation period, driven by the shipper's demand for temperature and humidity monitoring of a certain process node of goods, to the integrated monitoring demand of warehouse, transportation and distribution, starting from the goods leaving the factory, the origin warehouse, trunk transportation, sales place warehouse, stores, etc., all links are incorporated into the construction and management of the standard temperature system.'

Information technology helps the cold chain industry to grow and mature rapidly, but in the context of 'speed', every industry inevitably goes through the stage of "wild growth". In order to let the cold chain logistics industry can develop healthily, the government has also made specific requirements from many angles, such as construction and supervision.

The central government has long attached importance to the work of agriculture and rural areas, the reporter learned that this year's Central Document No. 1 is clearly pointed out that we should ' to accelerate the improvement of rural logistics system at the county and village levels, to improve the rural mail logistics infrastructure, in-depth promotion of e-commerce into rural areas and agricultural products out of the village into the city, to promote effective docking between urban and rural production and consumption. Promote the renewal of durable consumer goods for rural residents. Accelerate the implementation of the construction project of agricultural products storage and preservation cold chain logistics facilities, and promote the construction of small storage and preservation cold chain facilities at the head of the field, low-temperature direct sales distribution centers of origin, and national backbone cold chain logistics bases.'

The introduction of this document undoubtedly pointed out a clear direction for the long-term construction of the cold chain industry and standardized the path of industrial development.

And from the regulatory side, its strength is also increasing. Qin Na told reporters that, according to the "National Food Safety Standards Food Cold Chain Logistics Health Code" mandatory national standards released in September 2020, which provides that in the process of food cold chain logistics: 'temperature control as the main means, so that the food from the factory to the sale of food is always within the required temperature and humidity range' the basic requirements .

Left hand construction, right hand regulation. The government attaches great importance to the cold chain logistics industry, on the one hand, is highly concerned and responsible for the safety of food and other goods transportation, on the other hand, it also reflects the high hopes for the future development of the cold chain logistics industry space.

Qin Na believes that this is the transformation of cold chain logistics from a 'supporting role' to a 'leading role' in recent years.

'The cold chain has gone from being an additional function to a necessary need from the field to the food basket. The concern for the whole process of cold chain is no longer just for the shippers and supervisors, but more for each stakeholder user and user group, and the information process of cold chain is developing by leaps and bounds as this demand arises.'

Make everything talk, use data to make the whole logistics transparent

So, what value does Humpback Whale, which has been deeply involved in this field for six years, provide in the cold chain logistics industry?

The reporter found that the Humpback Whale is most concerned about the state of the goods in the two environments of storage and circulation (among them, in the field of agricultural products, there is also concern about the whole process of birth, growth, maturity and productization of the subject matter). This is actually the core reason for the high loss of goods in cold chain logistics: the state of the goods is unknowable during the time from the warehouse to the transportation link and then to the warehouse.

Qin Na told reporters that at present, the main intelligent hardware products of humpback whale is ‘Whale Dart’ series. As the name implies, its purpose is to become the ‘guardian of the safety of goods’. The Whale Dart series can realize real-time monitoring and tracing of goods information in multiple dimensions, including temperature, humidity, water, gas, light sensitivity, location, tilt, collision and bumps.

Intelligent hardware is the data grasp, but only acquiring data is not enough. The reasonable use of data is the only way for the cold chain industry to truly move towards informationization, which is the real magic weapon for Humpback Whale to serve its customers.

The reporter noted that Humpback Whale was not satisfied with the conventional practice of ‘treating headache and foot pain’, but used intelligent hardware products as the end of data collection to establish a neural network system for goods transportation, so as to realize the whole scene and chain configuration for raw material origin, production and processing, cold chain storage and transportation, retail and distribution.

And with the comprehensive service concept of ‘hardware + data platform + intelligent service’, Humpback Whale has built the ‘Whale Cloud’ SaaS platform as the 'brain center' of goods safety, quality control and AI intelligent and refined closed-loop management.

Through 'Whale Cloud', Humpback Whale has established functions such as 'AI intelligent waybill management for goods transportation' and "AI place management for goods storage", thus empowering customers to carry out early warning and control of their own production process and realize real-time source monitoring, multi-node traceability and unified supervision of food and drug goods.

Qin Na said, 'We firstly provide customers with the construction of standard temperature coefficients to provide standard integrated solutions and management tools for cold chain management; secondly, real-time stable data services to make every node covered by the cold chain monitorable, manageable, viewable and traceable.'

The reporter learned that the cumulative number of customers served by Humpback Whale has exceeded 400, including many companies that are leading in their respective tracks, such as CP Food, Lawson, Dingdong Maicai, Freshippo, Huada GBI, BASF, etc. At present, the service scope of Humpback Whale has also expanded from fresh food at the beginning to industries such as disease control, agriculture and animal husbandry, production and new retail.

For the young Humpback Whale, the recognition of customers already indicates the right direction of its business and the maturity of its business ability. With the further take-off of China's cold chain logistics industry, what new values can Humpback Whale make? Let's wait and see.