Joining hands against a common virus enemy

Editor's note:

All walks of life in Songjiang society are helping to keep the "fortress" of pandemic control and prevention strong and intact. A major online delivery platform is working round the clock to ensure food supplies and additional food is also being sourced from out of town. A face mask manufacturer in the district is racing against time to apply new techniques for production, while some female entrepreneurs in Songjiang have donated 4,166 packs of goods to meet the urgent needs of frontline volunteers. Here are some detailed stories.

Steamed bun company goes all out to meet breakfast demand

As one of the main breakfast providers in Shanghai, Babi Food is striving to make enough steamed buns to meet increasing demand during lockdowns.

The online orders received by the company in Songjiang are surging as residents across the city have been put under lockdown.

The company has expanded its sales channels from brick-and-mortar shops to e-commerce platforms and take-aways. Steamed bun is one of the staple foods for Chinese.

Each day the company supplies breakfast to about 2 million people in Shanghai. Due to the epidemic prevention and control measures, the company has seen its transport of raw materials and products hindered in some areas.

The company reported the problem to the Shanghai Commission of Commerce on March 15 and received a reply on the same day. The commission issued a green pass to the company, solving the transport problem.

Now its workshops are much busier than before. Stuffing is done by automatic machines and then transported to a finished products workshop where workers handmake steamed buns.

"As a food enterprise, disinfection and sanitation is the most basic requirement for us," said Li Jun, vice president of the company. "Therefore, in fact for epidemic prevention, we only upgraded on the existing basis.

"We have set up a special fund for epidemic prevention in three aspects: people, wealth and property, which has ensured the normal operation of epidemic prevention and effectively protected the normal production and operation of enterprises.

"We have actively reserved epidemic prevention materials for more than a month, increased production shifts, to ensure the breakfast supply of Shanghai citizens and even east China."

Ti Gong

Garbage crews ensure good environment in Songjiang

Closed-loop garbage clearing and transportation has been carried out in Songjiang's locked-down neighborhoods by sanitation workers daily to ensure a good environment for residents.

"Workers responsible for locked-down neighborhoods await their orders around the clock," said an official with Songjiang Landscaping and City Appearance Administrative Bureau. "They wearing protective gear, and take nucleic acid tests every two days.

"We have dispatched 11 cleaning vehicles and 22 cleaning workers and arranged special places to implement the entire closed-loop management."

In addition, the bureau formulated an emergency plan with special personnel for possible risks during garbage removal and transportation, road cleaning and public toilet cleaning. Division of duty has been clarified and personnel allocation well-prepared.

"We have also established a waste disposal coordination group with the district's health commission, and ecology and environment bureau to ensure timely removal and transportation of domestic waste in locked-down neighborhoods," said the official.

Since the resurgence of the pandemic in Shanghai, the bureau has equipped all cleaning vehicles with disinfection cans and strictly implemented epidemic prevention and control requirements.

80 tons of vegetables shipped in from outside district amid coronavirus resurgence

Eighty tons of vegetables sourced from other provinces arrived in Songjiang in batches on March 24 as the suburban district worked to meet the demand of its locked-down residents while supplying food and daily necessities for the entire city of Shanghai.

Starting from 6pm on March 24, trucks loaded with vegetables sourced by the Songjiang Economic Commission from Zaozhuang and Linyi cities of Shandong Province, and Huzhou and Jiaxing cities of Zhejiang Province arrived in Songjiang. And more food supply was on its way to the district.

"As some nearby agricultural wholesale markets suspended business, some retailers complained about supply difficulties. We immediately contacted a vegetable base in Zaozhuang of Shandong Province and bought ten tons of vegetables of 11 varieties, including potatoes, lettuce, bell peppers and zucchinis," said Zhang Fang, general manager of Shanghai Qiyuan Agricultural Trade Market Management Co. The firm is in charge of 12 wet markets in seven subdistricts and towns in Songjiang.

Shanghai Yunji Agricultural Trade Market Management Co, which has one fourth of the district's market share, was another company that sourced vegetables from Shandong.

"The wholesale price of these vegetables isn't higher than local ones. For example, the price of cucumbers per kilogram is 2 yuan (31 US cents) lower than the local variety," said Huang Yongjun, manager of the company.

Lu Jialei, chief of Wumart Supermarket's Songjiang Feihang Branch, said that they have food supplied mainly from Jiaxing City of Zhejiang, a region less impacted by the pandemic. "Every day about 20 tons of fresh food is transferred here from Jiaxing," Lu added.

In addition, the Songjiang Agricultural Commission has launched its food emergency plan and dispatched technicians to offer guidance to farmers on pesticides, fertilizers and seed collection.

"So far we've delivered more than 1,300 kilograms of vegetable seeds to farmers, which are able to yield about 3,300 mu (220 hectares) of plants. In the past week, the farmers have planted 638 mu of vegetables," said Shen Yinhua, a researcher with the district's agricultural commission. "The district's daily market supply of vegetables is about 180 tons so far."

Lady entrepreneurs to the rescue of frontline medical staff, volunteers

Supplying COVID-19 pandemic control and prevention goods that are in short supply within half an hour, female entrepreneurs in Songjiang District solved a major problem with their strong sense of responsibility and a positive attitude.

A notice on March 16 informed that frontline medical workers and volunteers at some quarantine sites in the suburban district were in urgent need of daily necessities. Members of the district's female entrepreneur association responded voluntarily and within half an hour 4,166 packages of daily necessities, including power banks, disposable shavers and women's sanitary products, were collected.

Some quarantine sites, under lockdown management, had no logistics delivery. The group of female entrepreneurs, by driving themselves or using express delivery, sent the most urgent goods to the frontline workers on the same day. The rest of the goods arrived within 48 hours.

In addition, some female entrepreneurs also volunteered as nucleic acid testing assistants in their communities.

The ladies of good Samaritans are:

Zhang Chunmei from Shanghai Baolu Automobile Co who donated 100 packets of food;

Yu Jianfen from Shanghai Tahui Knitting Factory who donated 1,200 pairs of socks;

Wang Jing from Polystar Engineering Plastics (Shanghai) Co who donated 240 towels;

Zheng Xuna from Shanghai Baijin Machinery Co who donated 480 bottles of shampoo and shower gel;

Wang Haiyun from Shanghai Safepeak Industry Co who donated 50 boxes of milk and fruit;

Wu Linlin from Meiguang Shanghai Industrial Co who donated power banks;

Jin Suling from Shanghai Cloud Blade Manufacturing Co who donated disposable shavers;

Sun Jie from Shanghai Yueyueshu Women Products Co who donated 200 packages of women's sanitary products;

Ceng Lu from Shanghai Forest Cabin BioScience Co who donated 120 sets of facial cleanser and lotion;

Wang Jing from Longdi Cloth (Shanghai) Co who donated 240 sets of toothbrush and toothpaste;

Wang Caiqing from Shanghai Gabriel Bakery Food Co who donated 240 pieces of soap;

Sun Yishan from Shanghai Xiyu Industrial Co who donated 400 T-shirts;

Zhang Xi from QiaoYi (Shanghai) Optical Fiber and Cable Equipment Co who donated 36 boxes of Red Bull drinks;

Zhi Wenyan from Shanghai Xinyang Semiconductor Material Co who donated 240 packets of food;

Shen Juan from Shi Lu Jiu Hui Tou (Shanghai) Cultural Development Co who donated fruits;

Fan Xiaoyong from Shanghai Zhifan Garment Co who donated 40 sweaters;

And Shanghai Joy Plus Fashion Co which donated 5,000 FFP2 face masks.

Ti Gong

Firm unveils unique melt-blown fabric machine, can produce top-quality face masks

A machine that can produce seven different kinds of melt-blown fabrics simultaneously while automatically detecting its production process has been introduced at Dasheng Sanitation Co, a Songjiang-based company that has been racing against time in the coronavirus fight.

As its mouth engulfs raw materials, the machine yields waves of high-quality melt-blown fabrics. The 60-million-yuan (US$9.44 million) machine is now in its trial operation period.

"The machine, 34 meters long with a width of 13 meters and a height of 13 meters, is enormous. The melt-blown fabric it yields is of high quality," said Wu Shengrong, chairman of Dasheng Sanitation Co. "The machine has several tubes used to transfer raw materials, enabling it to yield seven different kinds of melt-blown fabrics simultaneously. In addition, its double die heads allow it to produce fabrics that are more delicate and even."

"Suppose we are going to produce 20-gram fabrics spreading 1 square meter, the machine is able to yield two pieces of 10-gram fabrics spreading 1 square meter. Therefore, we can have double-layer fabrics out of the same amount of raw materials. The more delicate and even fabrics can be used to make high-end face masks, including N99, N100, P99 and P100," Wu explained. "And there is no need to rely on imported high-end fabrics."

"Also, the machine is able to self-detect its errors and readjust production even if any tiny bumps and miscalculation are detected," Wu added.

The company, soon to benefit from this high-end machine, will also apply the technology into making water-filtration cloth.

"We will explore other fields such as water filtration and air filtration while ensuring our face mask production." Wu said. "We initially planned to launch production with the machine in May, but judging from the current pandemic condition, we will start production ahead of time."

Dingdong Maicai warehouse works around the clock to deliver daily supplies

The daily delivery volume of Dingdong Maicai's Chenta Road warehouse in Songjiang District has reached about 1 million packages and employees work in shifts around the clock to ensure food supply amid the COVID-19 pandemic resurgence, a chief of the warehouse said recently.

Dingdong Maicai is a leading e-commerce fresh food delivery platform.

The Chenta Road warehouse is Dingdong Maicai's biggest vegetable and fruit warehouse in Shanghai. At the 23,000-square-meter cold-chain warehouse, hundreds of processing lines are operating constantly as workers pack vegetables and fruits from all over the country in an orderly manner. The packages are then delivered to the densely-scattered front warehouses of Dingdong Maicai in the city, and finally reach residents through deliverymen.

"Compared with previous deliveries, our warehouse's supply capacity has risen by over 50 percent. The supply volume of vegetables has risen to 1,000 tons from the previous 600 tons daily, that of meat, eggs and milk to 700 tons from 400 tons daily, and rice, flour and oil to 300 tons from 120 tons daily. All the figures keep rising," said Xu Huacheng, chief of the Chenta Road warehouse.

Meanwhile, the warehouse is actively assisting Songjiang's pandemic control and prevention work by delivering about 2,000 packs of food daily to the suburban district's locked-down neighborhoods.

To ensure that its own pandemic control and prevention work is carried out well, workers check their temperatures no less than twice daily and staff members are allowed to work only by showing their 48-hour negative nucleic acid test results.

To supervise the safety measures of the warehouse and ensure its 24-hour operation, Xu himself has rented a house near the warehouse and has been away from home for more than two weeks.

Ti Gong