Selling frozen means taking on the job of keeping the product at -18 °C from the moment the parcel closes until it is delivered. The Turkish Food Codex Communiqué on Quick-Frozen Foodstuffs (2014/47) requires -18 °C or colder at every point in the product and allows a brief rise of no more than 3 °C only during transport, distribution and in retail cabinets. Ice cream and edible ices fall outside the communiqué.
- Blast freeze the product. The communiqué requires the zone of maximum crystallisation to be passed as quickly as possible; a home freezer compartment freezes slowly, and the ice crystals that grow damage the texture.
- Put the storage temperature and the words do not refreeze after thawing on the label; both are required by the communiqué's labelling article.
- Size the insulated box and the fully frozen cold source for the delivery that runs late, not for the time the courier quotes. A parcel handed over on Friday may spend the weekend at a hub, so choose dispatch days with that in mind.
- Before you start selling, send a parcel to your own address in the hottest month of the year and measure the product temperature at the end of the target time. Product that has thawed and refrozen does not go back on sale.
Once volumes become regular, returnable insulated containers with eutectic plates replace single-use boxes. In the deep-frozen range the container needs preparing too: GEBHARDT recommends pre-cooling Isotec and TBX containers at -21 to -25 °C for 12-20 hours.
