Food Safety within the Cold Chain
Have you wondered how is it possible to enjoy fresh fruit in the winter, or to buy fresh sea food even though the sea is miles away from you? The answer to these questions is the cold chain - a supply chain that maintains a constant temperature and minimizes all forms of product deterioration. As the number of countries that base their economy on the export of goods around the world kept on growing, the control of the shipment’s temperature became an important issue within international trade.
This method goes back to the eighteen century when people were using some kind of primitive cold chain management technics and practices like sprinkling natural ice on the fish to keep it fresh while at sea; farmers used the same method to transport dairy products from one village to another.
In order to ensure a variety of fresh and diverse products on the markets a new transportation system appeared called cold chain. This system enables us to keep and distribute fresh and healthy products in good condition, by ensuring that our goods reach their destination fresh and safe using professional thermal and refrigerated packaging methods. Not only food industry, but pharmaceutical and medical industries as well are increasingly relying on the cold chain technology.
In the past few years the logistics industry has become more specialized and made the process of cold chain management more difficult. Besides long journeys and frequent handling, factors such as the duration of transit and the size of the shipment, influence the success or failure of a cargo. The success of a transport is inextricably linked to knowing how to ship a product having the temperature adapted to the shipping circumstances. The standard temperature levels are:
To fight all the issues that could influence the products’ quality, governments and regulatory agencies thought of imposing Hazard analysis and critical control points, or better known as HACCP. HACCP is a preventive approach to food and pharmaceutical safety that analyses and identifies all the potential physical, allergenic, chemical, and biological risks that can exist within a product and tries to mitigate them. From food production to food packaging and distribution, this system is involved in all stages of the food chain.
Maintaining the cold chain is everyone’s responsibility and if a breakdown in temperature control occurs in the process of handling fresh food the quality of the product will be damaged. Therefore eliminating all the hazards associated with food production and transportation leads to greater consumer satisfaction and increased demand.
- “banana” (13 °C)
- “chill” (2 °C)
- “frozen” (-18 °C)
- “deep frozen” (-29 °C)