A cold chain product is a product whose temperature condition is defined on its label, in its regulation or in its marketing authorisation. The list is easy to memorise as three groups: chilled food, frozen food and cold-chain medicines. The real work is not the list but reading each product's condition from its own source.
The main groups on the food side
Typical members of the chilled group are fresh meat and charcuterie, milk and dairy, ready meals and fresh cakes. Fresh fish stands apart within the group: its condition is not a number but staying near the melting point of ice. For some products, such as minced meat, regulation sets an explicit internal-temperature ceiling.
In the frozen group, the Turkish Food Codex requires quick-frozen food to stay at -18 °C or lower at every point. Ice cream sits outside that communiqué and is judged by its own requirement; the word frozen in a product name does not settle the scope by itself.
Fruit and vegetables are a separate world: the produce breathes, generates heat and has no single common table. A strawberry and a banana do not ask for the same condition; here the condition follows the product and its ripeness.
The pharmaceutical side
Medicines that TİTCK classifies as cold-chain products are stored and distributed in the 2-8 °C band and under the conditions set by the marketing authorisation holder. The band belongs to that class of products, not to all medicines; each product's own storage condition is checked separately.
Verified example conditions
| Product or scope | Condition | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Quick-frozen food | -18 °C or lower at every point | Turkish Food Codex 2014/47 |
| Minced meat | Internal temperature at most 2 °C | Hygiene regulation for food of animal origin |
| Specified fishery products | Near the melting point of ice | The same regulation |
| Cold-chain medicine | 2-8 °C plus authorisation conditions | TİTCK notice |
The table is not a dispatch instruction. Where a narrow category, an authorisation or the outer pack gives a more specific condition, that condition prevails. A product of unknown scope is never assigned its neighbour's temperature.
