Most delivery disputes start when the logger report and the hand-held reading disagree and both parties believe they measured the same thing.
| Quantity | Rule | Measured with |
|---|---|---|
| Ambient | 2014/48, Article 4: recorded throughout carriage, kept at least a year | Logger in the body |
| Product | 2015/34, Annex 2: every point -18 °C or colder, brief excursion 3 °C at most | Probe 2.5 mm below the surface |
A logger showing -20 °C all trip does not prove that a product loaded warm was at -18 °C. Even if the product reads -19 °C at acceptance, without the record the monitoring obligation has not been met.
The rule loosens as scale shrinks: in distribution, in retail cabinets and in retail cold rooms under 10 m³, one easily visible thermometer is enough.
The acceptance record carries three lines: the range the logger showed across the trip, the product values taken with a probe at acceptance, and the points where they were taken.
Disputes about temperature at the doorstep usually come down to which of those three lines was actually filled in.
