Have a pint of ice cream ever reach you as a sad, soupy mess? Or sliced open a pack­age of fresh pro­duce that appeared to have seen bet­ter days?

That’s the exact night­mare tem­per­a­ture con­trolled freight aims to avoid.

Today’s newslet­ter delves into the nuts and bolts of how it works, why it mat­ters and things that are shak­ing up the cold chain logis­tics. We’ll also tell you why cold freight is the next fron­tier of food, and why it’s increas­ing­ly becom­ing a fix­ture in sus­tain­able food deliv­ery.

What Is Temperature Controlled Freight?

Cold, hard and cool revenge: That’s what tem­per­a­ture con­trolled freight (also known as cold chain logis­tics) is all about—moving per­ish­able goods in con­di­tions which will con­tin­ue to keep them safe and fresh.

That includes things like meat, dairy, seafood, frozen foods, fruits, veg­eta­bles and even some med­ica­tions. If it can ruin, it’s prob­a­bly cold freight depen­dent.

One upward or down­ward bump in tem­per­a­ture any­where along the chain? It can result in spoilage, con­t­a­m­i­na­tion or prod­uct recalls. And nobody wants that mess.

Why Cold Chain Logis­tics Mat­ter More Than Ever

Cold chain logis­tics is more than a fleet of trucks with AC.It’s a com­plex sys­tem, one that involves the store, the cloud, and some kind of mobile deliv­ery truck, says Waseem Kres­by, GoodProg’s Co-Founder and CEO, that helps to keep goods with­in the par­tic­u­lar tem­per­a­ture range they’re sup­posed to be in as they trav­el from point A to point B.

Here’s why it’s crit­i­cal:

As food stor­age con­tain­ers Keeps food fresh for A Longer time Pro­tects from mold, freez­er burn.

Reduces food waste

Pro­tects brand rep­u­ta­tion

It com­plies with health and safe­ty reg­u­la­tions

Cold chain issues are respon­si­ble for mil­lions of tons of food waste each year, accord­ing to ReFED. That’s not only waste­ful — it’s cost­ly.

Read the full ReFED analy­sis here

Break It Down: In Which Temperature Controlled Freight Does What?

It’s a team effort. Here is what a smooth cold freight oper­a­tion entails:

Refrigerated Warehousing

Before a ship­ment moves, it is sit­ting in tem­per­a­ture-con­trolled stor­age. Such facil­i­ties can chill, freeze or deep freeze, as required by the prod­uct.

Conditioned Transport

Then, think refrig­er­at­ed trucks, con­tain­ers and reefers. And each one is designed to keep an even tem­per­a­ture — 5 degrees Cel­sius for cheese, per­haps, or minus 18 degrees for a frozen bag of chick­en nuggets.

Live Monitoring Tech

Sen­sors mon­i­tor tem­per­a­ture, humid­i­ty and even door open­ings. If some­thing goes awry dur­ing a trip, alerts are imme­di­ate­ly gen­er­at­ed. No guess­work involved.

Issues in Temperature Controlled Logistics

Let’s face it: cold freight is bru­tal.

Energy Costs

Run­ning refrig­er­at­ed units burns fuel, erodes mar­gins and isn’t the green­est option unless done in a man­ner to max­i­mize effi­cien­cy.

Temperature Deviations

One hour with­out pow­er? That’s all it took to mis­place an entire truck­load of seafood.

Inconsistent Infrastructure

Reli­able cold chains are not some­thing that every city — or every coun­try — has. That is a huge prob­lem for glob­al sup­ply chains.

Compliance Burdens

Food and drug reg­u­la­tors do not mess around. Miss a tem­per­a­ture cut­off, and you could be fined or left with reject­ed goods.

Innovations Cooling the Madness

The indus­try is ris­ing to the chal­lenge with smarter tech:

• IoT Sen­sors: These mon­i­tor the tem­per­a­ture plus. Some can even pre­dict fail­ures in refrig­er­a­tors before they occur.

• Pre­dic­tive Ana­lyt­ics: What it means: AI can now fig­ure out the back­road workaround to traf­fic and blocked-off streets or even a 108-degree hot spell — in the realest sense.

• Solar-Pow­ered Reefers: Cer­tain fleets now employ solar pan­els to cut down on fuel use and emis­sions. Smart and sus­tain­able.

The Importance of Temperature Controlled Freight: The Foundation of Sustainability

Tem­per­a­ture con­trolled freight isn’t just about fresh­ness any­more — it’s also play­ing a big­ger part in reduc­ing food waste and sup­port­ing clean­er sup­ply chains.

• Less Waste = Less Emis­sions
  Rot­ten food cre­ates methane when it is tossed into land­fills. It lasts longer the cold­er it is shipped.

• Effi­cient Rout­ing
  New­er cold chain sys­tems cal­cu­late trips more effi­cient­ly to reduce fuel.

• Access to Local Mar­kets
  Farm­ers can now deliv­er del­i­cate fruits or dairy to far-flung cities with­out sac­ri­fic­ing their crops to heat.

 The American Truck Inc.

We’re talk­ing about one com­pa­ny that still does it the right way: The Amer­i­can Truck Inc.

They have bought high-end refrig­er­at­ed trucks with real-time track­ing and ener­gy-effi­cient sys­tems. Their busi­ness is evi­dence that tem­per­a­ture con­trolled freight is not only pos­si­ble but can be prof­it mak­ing and envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly.

You’ll also find ways of min­i­miz­ing idle time (the clock already starts as soon as orders are tak­en, and it doesn’t stop), using data ana­lyt­ics to improve rout­ing and train­ing the crew to han­dle per­ish­ables like pro­fes­sion­als.

Bot­tom line? They’re ship­ping chilled car­go with­out the dra­ma.

Final Thoughts

It’s not just behind-the-scenes that freight is tem­per­a­ture con­trolled. It’s the miss­ing link in our food sys­tem.

It’s what’s keep­ing your sushi fresh, your milk safe, and your berries from turn­ing into berry soup.

But more than that, it’s mak­ing sus­tain­able logis­tics and feed­ing the world both fea­si­ble and pos­si­ble.

So the next time those gro­ceries arrive look­ing straight off the farm, you’ll know who to thank — the cold freight heroes who keep it chill, every mile of the way.

If you’re ready to take oppor­tunis­tic advan­tage of the cold freight sea­son, or if you’re sim­ply inter­est­ed in sharp­en­ing your cold freight pro­gram learn more about cold chain logis­tics or ask for more infor­ma­tion at The Amer­i­can Truck Inc.