As we experience a brutally hot summer in many areas throughout the country, it’s the right time to highlight the importance of temperature controlled transportation to ensure the quality of your products and the safety of your customers. Your temperature controlled products are sold and ready to ship, you wouldn’t want to risk comprising the quality of the products by shipping with a transportation provider who doesn’t have a network of reliable carriers with temperature controlled capabilities. Whether you’re shipping food products, confectionery, beverages, alcohol or other temperature sensitive items, these are the risks you face if you choose to utilize the wrong transportation provider:
Temperature Fluctuations: Without refrigerated trailers and a temperature monitoring system, you can’t trust that your products are shipped safely whether it’s the middle of summer or the dead of winter. Temperature fluctuations greatly impact the quality of your products and in many cases, can make the products unsafe for consumption. In many cases, while it may not impact the safety of your products, the quality of the product can be impacted like, when chocolate gets too warm it obviously melts, and when chocolate gets too cold it develops a white film called a bloom. While still safe to eat, the appearance of bloomed chocolate is not an experience that you want your customers to have. Frequent temperature fluctuations can affect the quality of alcoholic beverages such as wine and beer. Olive oil can freeze and needs to be warmed up before it can be put on shelves for consumers to purchase. Frozen items being “slacked”, such as bakery items, that thaw out too quickly can lead to soggy and unstable packaging.
Poor Trailer Quality: Even if your transportation provider has temperature controlled trailers, the trailer quality has just as much of an impact on the well-being of your products. Damaged trailers can allow the elements to enter the trailer, compromising your products. Reliable carriers don’t continue to use damaged trailers without repairing them first. Carriers delivering to food distribution centers or food manufacturing locations are also expected to have trailers that are free from debris and potential contaminants and if these things are found a trailer, it can lead to the load being rejected. Typically, the products that require temperature controlled trailers also require immaculately clean trailers.
Unstable Service: No dedicated point of contact, no shipment visibility, no retailer compliance, no industry knowledge. Most products that require temperature controlled transportation, also require other services that a low-quality transportation provider won’t make readily available to you. A top-quality transportation provider will be a valuable asset to your company. Beyond knowing the temperature requirements of your products and having top quality trailers, they will have the resources to ensure that your freight reaches your customers on-time and intact.
Don’t have meltdown now that you know what could go wrong if your freight is in the wrong hands: Continental Logistics has the capabilities to meet all of your temperature controlled transportation needs. Check out our Temperature Controlled Transportation Flyer to learn about the benefits of our temperature controlled services and contact us today to find out how we can help you.
