As all our goods and products travel through the system, they change from one transport method to the next. From a warehouse to the back of a truck and then offloaded onto a ship or cargo plane – it takes many forms and modes of transport. It will eventually find its way back onto a truck and complete its delivery to the destination customer.

The process of cold chain shipping is a complex one. There will be important reasons as to why a product must remain at a core optimum temperature. If we take agriculture or food items where the temperature alters unfavourably, it will spoil the goods beyond repair.

The cold chain has to be managed and sustained throughout the life of the cargo transportation. Seafood is one type of produce that can very quickly perish if the cold chain is interrupted. Frozen foods can’t be refrozen once the thawed.

Then there are goods such as photographic film, chemicals, vaccines and pharma drugs. If a vaccine is sent abroad from a pharmaceutical firm to a country overseas, it will perish if at any time the chain is interrupted.  

The biggest industry sectors that use the cold chain transportation system are the food sector and then drugs. There are many chemical production manufacturers using cold chain but agricultural and pharmaceutical are the biggest clients.

Cold chain shipping is nothing more than a logistical science. Produce must be kept at optimum temperature throughout the life of the consignment and the way we use the packaging is going to determine that factor at every part of the logistical chain.

The science of this logistics has allowed many packaging companies to build and design specific packaging systems. We now have Pallet in Pallet Shippers, Pallet Shippers, Pallet Covers, Reusable Shippers, Parcel Shippers and Customised Systems.

SoftBox use and design these systems specifically for the control of cold chain consignments. These six main types of cold chain packaging will all work for your product. Some packaging systems are better for drugs, others more dynamic for the movement of food and agricultural produce.

Using temperature-controlled packaging is easier than you might imagine. Pallet in pallet shippers is where a pallet is thermally covered by another pallet. It is a system that has spent years in the design stage and works well and correctly for any consignment demanding a cold chain operation.