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China’s cold chain growth: increased capacity and sustainable practices in 2024

In 2024, China’s cold storage capacity grew by about 8% year-on-year, and sales of low-emission refrigerated trucks tripled, thanks to recent energy policies.

Reducing food loss is crucial in lessening the burden of food insecurity along with reducing global agricultural GHG emissions. China is one of the world leading exporters of agricultural and fisheries products, expected to contribute significantly to exports growth in the East Asia region in the coming decade [1].

As such, it is imperative that China’s cold chain logistics grows to support the food trade and limit food loss.

 

According to China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing (CFLP), China’s total cold storage capacity reached 237 million cubic meters in June 2024, reflecting a 7.73% year-on-year increase. This represents 9.42 million cubic meters of new cold storage capacity added in 2024.

Significant efforts are being made to build cold storage facilities in production areas, in order to facilitate the distribution of fresh agricultural products.

 

In addition, a transition towards more sustainability has been observed mainly in the refrigerated transport sector. For example, released in 2021, the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Cold Chain Logistics", stated the need to accelerate the elimination of high emission refrigerated trucks and encourage new or retrofitted refrigerated trucks to adopt new energy models [3].

Consequently, while diesel-fuelled refrigerated trucks represented about 90% of the fleet in 2019 [4] and still 80% in 2022 [5], sales of “new energy” refrigerated trucks have since improved. Supported by policies such as the 14th Five-Year Plan and by clean energy infrastructure, sales of “new energy” refrigerated trucks reached 21,368 units in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 350.8 % [6].  In 2024, the penetration rate of “new energy” refrigerated trucks was 33.9%, an increase of 25.2 percentage points year on year.

 

"New energy" refrigerated trucks included electric trucks, hybrids as well as trucks fuelled by natural gas or hydrogen [3, 7].

 

 

Sources

[1] OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2024-2033. Regional outlook: Developed and East Asia https://www.agri-outlook.org/documents/Regional_Developped&EastAsia.pdf

[2] Explosive Growth: China’s Cold Chain Market Expands Rapidly in the First Half of 2024 https://www.icebagchina.com/news/explosive-growth-chinas-cold-chain-market-expands-rapidly-in-the-first-half-of-2024/

[3] New energy refrigerated trucks in the first eight months of 2024 https://m.chinaspv.com/statistics/6309.html

[4] https://www.huabonthermo.com/news/Analysis-Report-of-the-Refrigerated-Trucks-Operation-in-China-70.html

[5] https://m.chinaspv.com/statistics/4910.html

[6] China's cold-chain logistics sector sees steady growth in 2024 https://www.bastillepost.com/global/article/4500618-chinas-cold-chain-logistics-sector-sees-steady-growth-in-2024

[7] https://english.www.gov.cn/policies/latestreleases/202212/15/content_WS639ada84c6d0a757729e47de.html