Moving perishable or temperature sensitive goods from the point of production to the point of purchase is what makes the cold chain critical for international trade. The cold chain opens up new markets for medical and freight companies and demands development of common best practices.

1. Cold Chain Best Practices for Transportation
The “cold chain” is simply a supply chain designed to respond to special needs of production,
transportation, storage and retail of temperature sensitive products. The global pharmaceutical
and refrigerated food market is growing rapidly and requires better operation and organization of
transport.
Moving perishable or temperature sensitive goods from
the point of production to the point of purchase is what
makes the cold chain critical for international trade. The
cold chain opens up new markets for medical and freight
companies and demands development of common best
practices. Below we describe those that, we feel, are vital
for preserving the safety and quality of the cold chain.
Warehouse: For operations in the warehouse there are two critical issues: choosing a qualified
packaging system and the preparation of the products for transportation. When transporting
sensitive products it’s important to use only packaging that has been tested for maintaining the
required temperature for the delivered products. It’s also important to identify the product
characteristics because cold chain devices are developed to keep the temperature constant not to
bring the product to the suitable temperature.
Transportation: during transportation, the most important issue is to find the right temperature
monitring solution. There are a variety of options, ranging from those that give an alert when the
temperature falls outside its range to those that provide actual, real time readings. In general, the
device you choose should respond to the needs of products, based on the manufacturer’s
specification. You can learn more about temperature monitoring solutions used across the cold
chain by reading about Cooltrax resources.
Point of sale: the last stage of the cold chain is the point of sale. There are many rules for proper
handling of sensitive products and it’s very important for retailers to focus on maximizing shelf
life and applying HACCP. This includes such things as:
correct processing and packaging of the product at the point of sale
ensuring that display cases are capable of maintaining a proper temperature
placing products near other products with similar properties
There are other aspects that require monitoring and attention during the cold chain. One is cost
versus value ratio. It’s important to understand the mechanisms which lead the supply chain and
not implement solutions that are too sophisticated or too costly for actual needs. Another is
quality assurance. If problems comprise a shipment, the provider should find the source and
suggest solutions which reduce or eliminate the damage if this is in his/her area of expertise.

2. Best practices used in the cold chain are not yet standard and depend on the nature of the
shipment, the packing system and the implemented control temperature. Companies need to find
the right combination for their cold chain which will help them to reduce costs, maintain quality
and create an efficient and dynamic system.
Tom Chicoine
Tom is VP of Business Development for Cooltrax Americas and has thirty years of senior
management responsibility within food manufacturing, distribution, transportation and related
industries. Prior to Cooltrax, Tom was founder and CEO of Truck Care Network, an
organization which developed unique processes, programs and information systems providing an
unparalleled approach to networking maintenance and rapid services for the commercial
trucking industry. Prior to TCN he held corporate officer positions managing multi-facility food
manufacturing & distribution organizations, encompassing private fleet operations of one
thousand vehicles. Tom holds a degree in Dairy Science from the UMass and is certified in
HACCP development and implementation.