Focus! 2025 The new direction of the refrigeration and freezing industry under Document No. 1

The release of the Central Document No. 1 in 2025, in the grand blueprint of the rural revitalization strategy, points out a new direction for many industries, among which the frozen and refrigerated industry has ushered in a series of major opportunities and changes.

           The document clearly puts forward to deepen the construction of the county commercial system, support the layout of the chain business county market, and promote the extension of cold chain distribution and instant retail to the townships. This initiative is of far-reaching significance, directly for the frozen refrigeration industry to develop a broader market space. All along, there are many short boards in the cold chain distribution in townships, with imperfect facilities and limited coverage, which makes it difficult to deliver many fresh products efficiently. Now, with the promotion of the policy, cold chain distribution will penetrate into the townships, which means that the cold storage industry can extend its service to more grass-roots areas to meet the growing demand of township residents for fresh and frozen food. This not only helps to improve the quality of life of township residents, but also brings new business growth points for frozen and refrigerated enterprises, prompting them to increase investment in cold chain facilities in townships, such as the construction of small cold storage, increase refrigerated transportation vehicles, etc., in order to adapt to the new market demand.

            From the perspective of market demand, China's total retail sales of consumer goods in county areas show vigorous consumption potential, which has reached 12 trillion yuan in 2024, with a year-on-year growth of 8.5%. With the extension of cold chain distribution to townships, the demand for frozen and chilled food in rural areas will be further stimulated. In the past, due to the imperfection of the cold chain, many rural residents were inconvenienced when purchasing frozen and chilled food, which limited the development of this part of the market. Now, the improvement of cold chain distribution will break this limitation, whether it is fresh meat, dairy products, or frozen seafood, frozen food, etc., can more conveniently enter rural households. This will lead to further expansion of the market size of the frozen and refrigerated industry, and enterprises need to continuously optimize the product structure and improve product quality to meet the diversified needs of the rural market.

             In terms of promoting the high-quality development of rural circulation, although the document focuses on optimizing the construction of the cold chain logistics system for agricultural products, accelerating the construction of backbone cold chain logistics bases, and laying out the construction of public cold chain logistics facilities in county origins was proposed in 2024, the continued policy orientation indicates that the role of the cold storage industry in the circulation of agricultural products is becoming more and more crucial. The construction of backbone cold chain logistics bases can integrate resources, improve the efficiency of cold chain logistics and reduce costs. The layout of public cold chain logistics facilities in county origins will better guarantee the freshness of agricultural products from the origin to the market and reduce losses. For the frozen and refrigerated industry, this means that enterprises need to improve their operation and management capabilities, strengthen cooperation with agricultural product producers and distributors, and jointly build an efficient cold chain logistics system for agricultural products.

              However, while ushering in opportunities, the frozen and refrigerated industry is also facing many challenges. At present, there are still some problems in China's cold chain logistics industry, such as the cold chain link still has the phenomenon of “broken chain”, insufficient rural cold chain logistics infrastructure construction, transit intermodal transportation change and both ends of the trunk and branch articulation is easy to de-cooling and break the chain, temperature control is difficult to ensure that it is always at the appropriate temperature, resulting in “the first kilometer As a result, “the initial kilometer” and “the middle 100 meters” have high attrition rate; cold chain hardware facilities are still lacking, the distribution of equipment is uneven, cold chain infrastructure is mainly concentrated in the coastal belt and first-tier developed cities, and cold chain resources are scarce in central and western regions; the cost of cold chain logistics is high, and the cost of warehousing and logistics has become the biggest pain point. Driven by the policy, the cold storage industry needs to increase the efforts of technological innovation and equipment upgrading, strengthen the training of talents, and improve the overall level of the industry in order to cope with these challenges.

            2025 Central Document No. 1 has brought unprecedented development opportunities for the frozen and refrigerated industry, and has played an important role in expanding market space, stimulating market demand, and promoting the integration of the industry and the circulation of agricultural products. However, the industry also needs to be aware of the existing problems, actively respond to the challenges, seize the policy dividend period, realize its own high-quality development, and contribute to the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy.

Shanghai KUB Refrigeration Equipment Co., Ltd.

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