As a core consumer destination, supermarket chains handle massive amounts of goods daily, including clothing, food, home appliances, sporting goods, and daily necessities. Food products account for a significant portion of this demanding transportation environment. Ice cream and frozen meat require a deep freeze below -18°C, cold drinks and beer require refrigeration at 2-8°C, fresh milk and yogurt require 0-4°C for freshness, and dry goods like clothing and home appliances require room temperature and a dry environment. Balancing the storage needs of diverse product categories within a single shipment, while balancing transportation efficiency, cargo safety, and cost control, has become a core challenge in supermarket chain supply chain management.
The Challenges of Single-Function Trucks – The Core Bottleneck Constraining Chain Supermarket Delivery Efficiency
Before the introduction of customized multi-temperature truck bodies, supermarket chains generally adopted a “single-temperature truck + multiple trips” model. This model presented three significant pain points, directly impacting supply chain turnover efficiency and operating costs:
- Inefficiency and Lengthy Delivery Chains
Single-temperature trucks (such as pure refrigerated trucks or pure dry vans) cannot simultaneously carry goods requiring different temperature zones. For example, to restock a single store with ice cream and laundry detergent, a refrigerated truck and a dry van would need to be dispatched separately. This resulted in insufficient loading efficiency per trip, reduced the average number of stores delivered daily, and the potential for missing peak morning and evening restocking windows.
- High cargo loss and significant safety risks.
Temperature-sensitive goods are prone to quality issues if they are transported using “temporarily adding ice packs to a normal-temperature truck” or “mixing normal-temperature items in a refrigerated truck.” Data shows that during transportation without specialized temperature zones, ice cream can melt at a rate of 15%-20%, and fresh milk can spoil at a rate of over 8%. This not only causes direct economic losses but can also lead to consumer complaints due to food safety issues, damaging brand reputation.
- High costs and significant resource waste
To meet the transportation needs of multiple product categories, supermarkets must purchase and maintain multiple single-purpose vehicles, increasing vehicle purchase costs. Furthermore, the increased number of trips leads to higher operating costs such as fuel consumption, driver salaries, and road and bridge tolls.
Multi-Temperature Trucks – An Efficiency Revolution in Chain Supermarket Delivery
Multi-temperature trucks utilize a “space partitioning + independent temperature control” design to achieve the combined functions of a single vehicle: a refrigerated truck, a fresh-keeping truck, and a dry freight truck.
- Higher Transportation Efficiency
Multi-temperature zone vehicles use physical partitions (such as insulated panels and sealed doors) to divide the vehicle into multiple independent temperature zones. Each zone can be set to a specific temperature (e.g., -18°C freezer, 0-4°C fresh-keeping zone, 20-25°C ambient temperature zone). This design allows the vehicle to load all the goods a store needs at once, achieving one-stop delivery from warehouse to store.
- A Safer Transportation Method
The temperature in each temperature zone of a multi-temperature truck can be monitored and adjusted in real time, ensuring that the cargo maintains a suitable environment throughout its journey. This reduces the loss rate of temperature-sensitive goods from 15% to below 2%. The melting rate of ice cream and frozen meat can be controlled to less than 1%, and the spoilage rate of fresh milk and yogurt is close to zero.
- Better Cost-Effectiveness
Multi-temperature trucks offer a single, multi-purpose vehicle, reducing costs in acquisition, operation, and maintenance. One four-temperature truck can replace three to four traditional vehicles, directly reducing vehicle acquisition and operating costs by 50%-60%.
TOPOLOGROUP Customized Services – “Exclusive Solutions” for Supermarket Chains
Different supermarket chains have varying store sizes, product mixes, and delivery radii, making standardized multi-temperature truck bodies difficult to fully adapt to their needs. Therefore, TOPOLOGROUP offers customized multi-temperature truck body designs, tailoring specific solutions based on factors such as the number of temperature zones and space usage.
| Temperature zone type | Temperature range | Applicable Scenarios |
|---|---|---|
| Dual temperature zones | Room temperature area (15°C to 25°C.). Refrigerated/frozen area (-18°C~8°C). | Small and medium-sized supermarkets (mainly selling dry goods and refrigerated products, with less demand for frozen products) |
| Three temperature zones | Room temperature area / fresh food area (0-25°C). Refrigerated area (-5°C to 0°C.). | Community supermarkets (with a high proportion of fresh produce and dairy products, and the need to accommodate both room temperature and low temperature requirements) |
| Four temperature zones | Room temperature range: 15°C to 25°C. Fresh storage range: 0°C to 10°C. Refrigerated storage range: -5°C to 0°C. Freezer range: -18°C or below (generally -18°C to -25°C). | Large comprehensive supermarkets and chain stores (rich in SKUs, covering all temperature zones) |