In order to transport temperature sensitive products and maintain their integrity, supply chain solution providers should have well designed and documented processes from pre-shipment preparation to final verification and delivery to destination. The design of an efficient cold chain packing process should contain three steps.

1. Cold Chain Design for Frozen Products
A successful cold chain company knows how to efficiently transport frozen products from the
source to the destination while complying with all standards. In cold chain applications,
maintaining the required temperature is the most important challenge. Without that assurance
the the quality of the product can be damaged.
In order to transport temperature sensitive products and maintain their integrity, supply chain
solution providers should have well designed and documented processes from pre-shipment
preparation to final verification and delivery to destination. The design of an efficient cold chain
packing process should contain three steps.
Identify the appropriate cold chain materials. The most used refrigerant for passive cold chain
packing systems are the water-based ones, however this is not a good solution to keep the
product temperature under 0°C. This is because any small temperature variance within the
container can cause the product to rise above 0°C. To keep the item temperature below 0°C, a
different type of refrigerant should be used. Basically the product category will dictate the
material to be used, however there is one to rule to follow when testing the refrigerant and that is
to precondition them at least 10°C below the phase point. For example most designs for
transport that take less than two days will use expanded polystyrene (EPS) containers. Two or
three day transports will use polyurethane (PUR) containers. For durations beyond three days
you should consider using Vacuum Insulated Panels (VIP).
Identify the optimal configuration. In the majority of cases the most efficient design is to place
frozen refrigerants below and above the products. It is important to have more gel packs above
the payload because the cold dense air created by the refrigerant will always flow down. Another
important design aspect is the air flow within the packing configuration. You must ensure that
cold air from the top frozen gels can circulate to the product load below.
Test and document the successful solution. Although you must test the cold chain shipping
configuration in both summer and winter conditions, usually the tests are not done in the winter
if the summer tests were successful. One important aspect of testing is to place the temperature
measurement probes on the top corners of the package because this area will always be the
location of the highest product temperatures at the end of the thermal test.
Deciding upon the best container material (whether EPS, PUR or VIP) and identifying the
suitable amount of refrigerant is vital in creating a successful packing configuration. When
assessing a cold chain design for frozen products, it is best to focus the temperature measurement
on the top corners of the product load. In order to maximize the phase change of the PCMs from
solid to liquid and therefore keeping the product load in the required temperature range attention
needs to be given to the container’s thermodynamics.

2. 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.