Every day, millions of restaurants, hospitals, stores, and universities have trusted freight services unloading refrigerated food safely and on time. But this doesn’t happen so easily.
In truth, the distribution of refrigerated foods may be among the least discussed among the food supply chain, though its function couldn’t be more important. As a matter of fact, properly unloading refrigerated food requires the consistent protection and monitoring of cargo, all in accordance with food safety regulations.
The United States distribution chain includes over 15,000 companies along, operating thousands of warehouses and fleets of trucks. With so many moving parts, there isn’t much room for error. To ensure food is preserved fresh and undamaged, there are a number of challenges freight unloaders face every day. This is especially challenging within the supply chain of refrigerated goods, such as with grocery stores and wholesale distributors. The protocols, regulations, deadlines, and process of transporting the cargo safely creates many possibilities for failure, all of which must be considered.
For instance, properly managing temperature control houses many variables that makes transporting and unloading refrigerated food all the more challenging. Freight unloaders must take all efforts towards proper sanitation while also considering the possibility of cross-contamination in the event of a problem. This means one small mishap can easily (and rather quickly) escalate into a much larger concern. When accounting for logistics and many unpredictable things that can happen in-transit, it starts to become more clear just how difficult it can be to deliver food safely and on time, especially on such a large scale.
