What Is a Cold Chain Process?
As the world is becoming more connected, transporting temperature-sensitive products from one place to another efficiently is becoming increasingly important. While businesses continue to expand across borders, cold chain operations have become a crucial factor in deciding the success or failure of businesses.
Suppliers that deal with temperature-sensitive products must be aware of the heat sensitivity of their products. Not considering how temperature-sensitive your products are can result in irreparable losses and financial losses. Acquiring an understanding of the cold chain’s know-how is important in ensuring the safe transportation of your goods.
Q. What is a cold chain?
As we know it is essential to maintain or control the temperature of perishables like food products to elongate their shelf life, and prevent them from losing their taste, color and quality. This is where the cold chain comes into play. The process of controlling the surroundings of food products or drugs to guarantee their safety while transporting is called the cold chain.
A cold chain is a cold storage supply chain consisting of temperature-controlled storage and packaging of temperature-sensitive products. Cold chains are vital in the transportation of pharmaceutical products, healthcare kits, medical supplies, food and beverages, chemicals, etc.
Q. What is a cold chain process?
A cold chain process ensures the storage, transportation and handling of perishable items end to end. In case a cold chain is interrupted, it might lead to a decay of items and a drop in the quality posing a danger to food and drug safety. Failure of thermal management and monitoring annually results in massive financial losses each year in the biopharma, retail and medical industries.
Cold chain packaging
The cold chain starts with packaging, so it is essential to choose your packaging material carefully. However, temperature-controlled packaging comes with its unique sets of challenges. Packaging is important to maintain the quality of your goods. The packaging material should depend on the temperature requirements of the material.
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Cold Chain Storage
Storage is a crucial process in cold storage. Storing products in a temperature-controlled environment, that is sanitized from time to time plays a crucial role in keeping the products safe from microbial contamination. This not only maintains the quality but also the viability of the product and makes sure it is safe for consumption.
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Logistics
Cold chain logistics ensure goods are at stable temperatures and humidity levels during transportation. There are specialized cold chain vehicles that move your products across air, highways, and waterways.
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Tracking
To oversee the storage and condition of perishable shipments, transporters often use data loggers and temperature indicators to check the condition and temperature of their shipments.
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Q. What are cold chain temperature standards?
The cold chain storage temperature can slightly vary in each country. Each cold chain product requires a different temperature to maintain its freshness. Cold chain temperatures can broadly be divided into the following categories[1]:
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● Deep freeze (-25° to -30° C) – seafood, ice cream, and meat exports.
● Frozen (-10° TO -20° C) – meat, poultry.
● Chill (2° to 4° C) – fruits, vegetables, fresh meat and dairy products.
● Biopharma (2° to 8° C)– medicines, vaccines.
● Tropical Fruits (12° to 14 ° C) – bananas, over-the-counter drugs, processed food.
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Q. What are some cold chain compressors by LG?
The idea of refrigeration is central to the concept of the cold chain and refrigeration is synonymous with compressors.
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Compressors are an inevitable part of any refrigeration unit. They are responsible for the flow of refrigerant inside a refrigeration system. LG offers various compressors suitable for refrigeration in commercial and industrial sectors. To find out more about these compressors, visit the links below:
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And to learn more about our cold chain management solutions, click here (https://bit.ly/46FikDM).