At 5 o’clock in the morning, in a farm next to the port of Narathiwat in Narathiwat Province, Thailand, a king of Musang was picked from a tree and began its journey of 10,000 miles: after about a week, crossing Singapore, Thailand, Laos, and finally entering China, the whole journey was nearly 10,000 li, becoming a delicacy on the tip of the Chinese’s tongue.
Yesterday, the overseas edition of People’s Daily published “A Durian’s Journey of Ten Thousand Miles”, from the perspective of a durian, witnessing the “Belt and Road” from road to railway to road, from car to train to automobile, high-tech refrigeration equipment strung together smooth long, medium and short-distance logistics.
When you open a Musang King in Hangzhou, the sweet flesh leaves a fragrance between your lips and teeth as if it had just been picked from a tree, and behind it is a company from Hangzhou that sells “air” equipment.
Over the past three years, through the Internet, Mr. Aaron and Mr. Frank have not only sold Hangzhou’s “air” to large and small farms in Southeast Asia’s Musang King production area, but also to fishing boats in Senegal and Nigeria in West Africa, strung together a “Belt and Road” of high-tech refrigeration equipment.
Double door “refrigerator” allows durian to sleep well
One is a technical man, the other has studied top business, and Mr. Aaron and Mr. Frank from Hangzhou and Wenzhou are a pair of classmates.
10 years ago, Hangzhou Nuzhuo Technology, founded by Mr. Aaron, started from industrial valves and began to slowly cut into the air separation industry.
This is an industry with a high threshold. Oxygen accounts for 21% of the air we breathe every day, and in addition to 1% of other gases, nearly 78% is a gas called nitrogen.
Through air separation equipment, oxygen, nitrogen, argon and other gases can be separated from the air to make industrial gases, which are widely used in military, aerospace, electronics, automobiles, catering, construction, etc. Therefore, medium and large air separation plants are also known as the “lungs of industrial manufacturing”.
In 2020, the new crown epidemic broke out around the world. Mr. Frank, who is investing in a factory in India, returned to Hangzhou and joined Aaron’s company. One day, an inquiry from a Thai buyer on Ali International Station caught Frank’s attention: whether it was possible to provide small liquid nitrogen equipment with smaller specifications, easy to transport, easy to install, and more cost-effective.
In Thailand, Malaysia and other durian producing areas, durian preservation must be frozen at low temperature within 3 hours of the tree, and liquid nitrogen is an important material. Malaysia has a special liquid nitrogen plant, but these liquid nitrogen plants only serve large farmers, and a large equipment can easily cost tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Most small farms cannot afford liquid nitrogen equipment, so they can only sell durians to second-tier dealers at a very low price locally, and even because they cannot dispose of rotten in the orchard in time.
In the Thai farm, the staff put the freshly picked durian into a small liquid nitrogen machine produced by Hangzhou Nuzhuo to quick-freeze and lock fresh
At that time, there were only two small liquid nitrogen equipment in the world, one was Stirling in the United States, and the other was the Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. However, Stirling’s small liquid nitrogen machine consumes very high, while the Institute of Physics and Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is mainly used for scientific research.
Wenzhou’s keen business genes made Frank realize that there are only a few manufacturers of medium and large liquid nitrogen equipment in the world, and it may be easier for small machines to break a path.
After discussing with Aaron, the company immediately invested 5 million yuan in research and development expenses, and hired two senior engineers in the industry to start developing small liquid nitrogen equipment suitable for small farms and families.
NuZhuo Technology’s first customer came from a small durian-rich farm in Narathiwat Port, Narathiwat Province, Thailand. After the freshly picked durian is sorted and weighed, cleaned and sterilized, it is put into a liquid nitrogen machine the size of a double-door refrigerator and enters the “sleep state”. Subsequently, they traveled thousands of kilometers all the way to China.
Sold as far as West African fishing vessels
Unlike the tens of millions of liquid nitrogen machines, Nuzhuo Technology’s liquid nitrogen machines cost only tens of thousands of dollars, and the size is similar to that of a double-door refrigerator. Growers can also tailor models to the size of the farm. For example, a 100-acre durian manor is equipped with a 10 liter/hour liquid nitrogen machine. 1000 mu also only needs a 50 liters/hour size liquid nitrogen machine.
The accurate prediction and decisive layout of the first time allowed Frank to step on the vent of the small liquid nitrogen machine. In order to drive foreign trade sales, in 3 months, he expanded the foreign trade team from 2 to 25 people, and increased the number of gold stores in Ali International Station to 6; At the same time, with the help of digital tools such as cross-border live broadcast and online factory inspection provided by the platform, it has brought a steady stream of customers.
In addition to durian, after the epidemic, the frozen demand for many fresh foods has also been extended, such as prepared dishes and seafood.
When deploying overseas, Frank avoided the Red Sea competition of first-tier developed countries, focusing on Russia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, South America, Africa and other “Belt and Road” countries, and sold as far as fishing countries in West Africa.
“After the fish is caught, it can be directly frozen on the boat for freshness, which is very convenient.” Frank said.
Unlike other liquid nitrogen equipment manufacturers, nuzhuo Technology will not only export equipment to “Belt and Road” partners, but also send overseas engineer service teams to serve the last mile.
This stems from Lam’s experience in Mumbai, India, during the pandemic.
Because of the relative backwardness of medical care, India once became the hardest hit area of the epidemic. As the most urgently needed medical equipment, medical oxygen concentrators are out of stock worldwide. When the demand for medical oxygen soared in 2020, Nuzhuo Technology sold more than 500 medical oxygen concentrators on Ali International Station. At that time, in order to urgently transport a batch of oxygen generators, the Indian military also sent a special plane to Hangzhou.
These oxygen concentrators that went to sea have pulled countless people back from the line of life and death. However, Frank found that the oxygen generator priced at 500,000 yuan was sold for 3 million in India, and the service of local dealers could not keep up, and many equipment was broken and no one cared for, and finally turned into a pile of waste.
“After the customer’s spare parts are added by the middleman, an accessory may be more expensive than a machine, how do you let me do maintenance, how to do maintenance.” Word of mouth is gone, and the future market is gone. Frank said, so he is more determined to do the last mile of service himself, and bring Chinese technology and Chinese brands to customers at any cost.
Hangzhou: The city with the most powerful air distribution in the world
There are four recognized giants of industrial gases in the world, namely Linde in Germany, Air Liquide in France, Praxair in the United States (later acquired by Linde) and Air Chemical Products in the United States. These giants account for 80% of the global air separation market.
However, in the field of air separation equipment, Hangzhou is the world’s most powerful city: the world’s largest air separation equipment manufacturer and the world’s largest air separation equipment manufacturing industry cluster are in Hangzhou.
A set of data shows that China has 80% of the world’s air separation equipment market, and Hangzhou Oxygen occupies more than 50% of the market share in the Chinese market alone. Because of this, Frank joked that durian prices have become cheaper and cheaper in recent years, and there is a credit to Hangzhou.
In 2013, when it first started the short separation business, Hangzhou Nuzhuo Group aimed to expand the business and achieve a scale like Hangzhou Oxygen. For example, Hangzhou Oxygen is a large-scale air separation equipment for industrial use, and Hangzhou Nuzhuo Group is also doing it. But now more energy is put into small liquid nitrogen machines.
Recently, Nuzhuo developed an integrated liquid nitrogen machine that costs only more than $20,000 and boarded a cargo ship to New Zealand. “This year, we are targeting more individual buyers in Southeast Asia, West Africa and Latin America.” Aaron said.
Post time: Oct-19-2023