China's digital, automated supply chains benefit foreign food companies

Various digital and automated technologies widely used in China's food industry chains and supply chains have significantly facilitated the development of foreign companies in China, including fast food giant McDonald's.

McDonald's made its debut at the ongoing second China International Supply Chain Expo (CISCE), which takes place in Beijing from Tuesday to Saturday.

The McDonald's exhibition booth at the expo is filled with fast food such as hamburgers and French fries. Every bite of the hamburger contains products and services from as many as 100 suppliers. For example, bread, lettuce, and cheese come from Beijing, sauce comes from north China's Hebei Province, and beef comes from as far away as Australia.

The "one box, one code" technology displayed by McDonald's at the expo has been rolled out across China and installed in more than 100 suppliers' factories. With the technology, every link in the production of any product can be traced back through a code on the shipping box. The technology aims to improve the efficiency and quality of supply chain data management. In addition, production and logistics can be allocated according to the restaurant's real-time inventory information to avoid food waste.

A smart industrial park in central China's Hubei Province was completed and put into operation in July this year. It is the first industrial cluster park for China's western fast food industry. The park was jointly built by McDonald's and four of its major suppliers, covering the entire industrial chain of food production, packaging, cold chain and distribution.

In the automated smart warehouse of the industrial park, goods delivered from different factories adopts the "one box, one code", which enables information exchange among factories, logistics and restaurants.

The equipment in the entire warehouse is basically running automatically. The logistics transport vehicle can automatically identify the QR code on the ground, deliver the goods to the warehouse, and carry out unmanned loading and unloading. In the sorting process, the robotic arms can identify the "digital ID card" on the boxes, and complete product matching according to the needs of different restaurants.

Intelligent management and automated processes like this have shortened the logistics time for goods entering the warehouse by 90 percent compared to before, which has not only improved efficiency but also reduced costs for McDonald's and other food companies alike.

The beef in McDonald's Angus beef burgers comes from ranches in Australia. In order to build a better reputation in the global supply chain, Australia has developed a meat standard evaluation mechanism for beef and mutton. The design of this evaluation mechanism is very diverse, based on more than 800,000 taste tests conducted by at least 100,000 consumers in 11 countries around the world.

As China's global supply chain continues to grow, Australian beef products are reaching more Chinese consumers. In order to better serve Chinese consumers, local farmers and purchasers have added labels to the packaging of beef products. Through any mobile phone that can read chips, people can access all the information about this product from the first day of production to every logistics link.

China's digital, automated supply chains benefit foreign food companies

Smart technologies have reshaped China's ecological and environmental monitoring system, Huang Runqiu, minister of Ecology and Environment, said Thursday in Beijing on the sidelines of the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress(NPC).

"Regarding ecological and environmental monitoring, we have been promoting the digitalization, informatization, and intelligentization of the entire monitoring process in recent years, reshaping the ecological and environmental monitoring system. For instance, in water environment monitoring and sampling, we have used intelligent drones which can quickly locate sampling points, collect samples accurately, return rapidly, and they are safe and reliable, improving work efficiency by over 70 percent. They are particularly advantageous for sampling during flood seasons and in remote areas," Huang told the press.

"In terms of environmental sample analysis, we have developed 'lights-out laboratories' in recent years. As the name suggests, these labs operate without lights and are unattended. Through robotic arms, robots, and intelligent management systems, they achieve full-process automation and intelligence from sample handover, testing, and analysis to report generation. This has significantly enhanced work efficiency, increasing it by more than eightfold compared to traditional labs. More importantly, it reduces human interference, human error, and even data falsification," he said.

Thanks to the improved ecological and environmental supervision capabilities, the number of environmental violation cases nationwide has decreased from 130,000 five years ago to 43,000 last year, representing a decline of 68 percent, Huang said.

The minister said China has already applied environmental DNA technology in the biodiversity monitoring work.

"In the field of biodiversity monitoring, monitoring aquatic organisms remains a weak point. However, significant progress has been made in recent years as we have developed environmental DNA technology. Although this chip is very small in size, it contains DNA detection information for aquatic organisms, including the finless porpoise and the Chinese sucker, from 19 state-controlled sections in the Jiangsu segment of the Yangtze River. The results showed that over the past five years, more than 20 species of aquatic organisms have increased in this river section, fully demonstrating the tangible effectiveness of the ten-year fishing ban in the Yangtze River," Huang said while showing a chip to reporters.

The 14th NPC, China's national legislature, concluded its fourth session on Thursday.

Smart technologies reshape China's ecological, environmental monitoring system: minister