The rigours of food safety transportation

A prevailing trend in the cold chain is the focus on quality and product sensitivity. With an increase in demand for premium products, shippers must maintain the integrity of these loads.

A change in temperature may jeopardise the quality and taste of these goods. Not only do shippers, loaders and receivers need to ensure the temperature settings are correct for transport and arrival, but they also have to combat:

• Exterior heat — When temperatures increase outside, the metal of trailers absorbs this heat and transfers it inside. Reefers must be calibrated to handle heat increase or spoilage will occur.
• Residual heat — Once heat rises within a trailer, it tends to remain. The insulating materials within work together with the load to capture and radiate the heat within.
• Infiltration heat — Any opening or holes within a trailer allow for warm air to enter and cold air to exit, increasing the likeliness of spoilage.
• Respiratory heat — Natural heat produced by product respiration is standard. However, certain products give off more than others. Respiration can be mitigated by keeping these items at cool temperatures. However, if your trailer is compromised, your delivery will be, also.

If these types of heat issues end up compromising the shipment, they become known as ‘excursions’. Excursions are typically unwanted temperature events that occur during manufacturing, storage, transportation and distribution.

When these events occur, they must be properly recorded for official record keeping. This process is both time consuming and labour intensive. Typically, a member of Quality Assurance (QA) will begin to collect all required data, determine if the parties involved addressed the data outcome and whether or not the information was recorded correctly. While this synopsis of the process portrays it to be brief, the reality is that this process can take up to 30-plus days to complete.

The amount one excursion event can cost a business is staggering. Consider this: 5–10% of shipments experience excursions. So depending on the volume of shipments a business does each year, these costs can quickly add up to an exorbitant amount, further hurting profitability.

However, the loss of product quality isn’t the only issue an excursion may cause. They also increase the odds of product recalls and food waste.

Recalls

Inconsistent temperature monitoring not only damages products, but the bottom line, too. For a more informative view, examine food recalls. Since recalls are mandated by regulatory requirements, they prevent human and financial disasters that would have occurred otherwise. The impact of those food recalls is widespread and costly. In a survey of 36 major international food companies by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), more than half (55%) reported experiencing a product recall in the five years prior, with the cost of many of these recalls reaching well into the tens of millions, some even costing more than $100 million.

Behind these numbers lurks a bigger problem for which there is no accurate financial estimate: loss of consumer trust. Recent surveys, such as the 2015 Food Value Equation Survey by Deloitte Consulting LLP, find consumers are seeking more reassurance about their food. There are significant numbers of inquiries regarding where and how food is being manufactured and distributed. Failure to meet these changing consumer expectations can result in serious consequences, and impact a business’s brand through negative public exploitation on far-reaching social media platforms.

Waste

While covering a lettuce farm in central California, National Geographic discovered that numerous loads were dumped each day due to procedural mistakes like: improperly filled, labelled and sealed containers. Due to the mishaps, the loads were then dumped. Between April and November that year, the local Waste Authority landfilled 4–8 million pounds of fresh vegetables from those fields. These numbers are not only staggering but they illustrate the seriousness of this issue. Many of these mishaps occur when standard recording procedures are done manually, which leads to improper documentation that invalidates the integrity of shipments — to which the numbers above illustrate and corroborate. But can shippers, loaders, receivers and the like secure their procedures and eliminate wasted product by implementing stricter digital HACCP solutions?

Lost food

While improper execution of the best practices above can lead to FDA imposed sanctions and profit loss, it also perpetuates the problem of food waste globally. This issue has become an epidemic and one that greatly affects the lives of many.

In a recent National Geographic article, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) suggests that one-third of food produced for human consumption worldwide is annually lost or wasted along the supply chain, which equates to 2.8 trillion pounds of food lost each year. That is enough to feed 3 billion people per year!

The amount of waste created along the supply chain each year is enough to feed the hungry and malnourished people of the world three times over. While waste is inevitable, even a 50% improvement would be able to feed those most in need.

We understand the nature of business is overcoming competition while expending the least capital possible, ultimately leading to profit. However, food-related businesses along the supply chain must ask themselves are they their own competition? Are best practices being properly executed? How can they ensure this in order to mitigate waste?

Ultimately, however, it becomes a human issue. Companies must be responsible and possess the empathy to understand this. Domestically, we may not feel the effects of global hunger as much as other third-world countries, but these businesses must be aware of the epidemic in order to elucidate this topic, while simultaneously maximising its businesses potential.

Remedies

As we can see, the issues discussed above are real. However, we can turn to technology to solve them.

Food safety technologies have the capability to maximise business potential. They will improve operational efficiency while reducing the amount of wasted food by digitising food safety practices and providing real-time business intelligence to provide actionable data.

Checklist management best practices guide employees and ensure they complete tasks the right way. While completing these, all information is recorded then stored in the cloud for impeccable record keeping and easy retrieval, ensuring seamless productivity from ‘Farm to Fork’ — further protecting our businesses, consumers and global food chain.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Al