Cainiao, the logistics affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Limited, has announced the establishment of three fresh food distribution centres in three major Chinese cities: Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The three centres are expected to support cold chain delivery of fresh food purchased on Taobao Marketplace and Tmall.com to the doorsteps of Chinese consumers within 24 hours.

Cainiao’s cold chain delivery service currently reaches 18 Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing, Hangzhou and Shenzhen. By the end of 2015, Cainiao plans to expand this service to 50 major Chinese cities.

To fulfill the varying needs of customers, the three new distribution centres also support on-demand delivery services, including delivery on specific dates and times and night delivery.

“The cold supply chain in China normally serves the business-to-business market, however, with the rising popularity of consumer e-commerce, we believe efficient cold chain delivery in the business-to- consumer segment is sorely needed as we aim to give our consumers the freshest possible result,” said Maggie Chen, head of the fresh food delivery team of Cainiao, “The company will invest more and work closely with our partners to strengthen the cold chain network across China.”

According to Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, China’s cold chain logistics industry is growing 25 per cent a year and will reach RMB470 billion (US$75.7 billion) in scale by 2017.