Distribution solutions
The cold chain as it runs in the field: urban rounds, warehouse-to-store shipments, several temperatures in one vehicle. Each page takes one job and shows how it is set up.
An alternative to the refrigerated vehicle: distribution in a standard van
For operations that run twenty drops a day inside the city, carry a pallet or two of chilled goods and already own standard vans: keep the cold in a closed container next to the goods instead of in the vehicle body.
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Multi-temperature distribution: different temperatures in one vehicle
The vehicle leaves the depot and has to carry three regimes: dry cartons, chilled goods, frozen goods. A multi-compartment body is one way. Tying the temperature to the container instead of the compartment is the cheaper way on most routes.
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Frozen transport without a reefer: holding -18 °C in a closed container
In frozen distribution there is only one question: will the goods be handed over as solid as they left the depot? How the container was prepared and how the round was ordered decide it; the badge on the vehicle does not.
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Cold transport in a standard vehicle: van, light truck, truck
Running cold distribution with the vans and light trucks already in the fleet: no unit fitted to the body, no permanent change to what the vehicle can do.
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Small-lot cold distribution: does two pallets need a whole reefer
Two pallets of frozen goods on the route and dry cargo in the rest of the body. The cooling runs for the whole body, and the bill comes for the whole body.
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Warehouse-to-store distribution: getting cold goods as far as the shelf
A delivery does not end at the store door. Goods wait at the ramp, cross the aisle and queue in the back room - and that is usually where the chain breaks.
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Urban cold distribution: holding the cold across twenty stops
On a city round the distance is short and the stops are many. What consumes the cold is not the length of the road but how often the door opens and where the vehicle waits.
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Last-mile cold chain: all the way to the customer's door
On the last mile the load gets smaller, the drops multiply and the delivery waits at the door. It is the shortest and the most fragile stretch of the cold chain.
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The cold chain in a distribution centre: from picking to dispatch
Goods leaving a cold store travel exposed as far as the ramp. In most facilities the longest break in the chain happens before the vehicle arrives, inside the building itself.
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Central kitchen to branch: the cold half of the job
A kitchen sends food out two or three times a day to eight or fifteen points. The hot side is settled: the box is shut, the distance is short, the food leaves hot anyway. The trouble is on the cold side - salads, dairy desserts, mezes, the raw prep for tomorrow. This page is about how that half travels.
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Ready-meal distribution: the shortest and most fragile link in the chain
In ready-meal distribution the distances are short, the times are short and the loads are light. That is exactly why the cold chain gets neglected here: half an hour on the road, what could happen. The shelf life of the product, though, is decided by the sum of those half hours.
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Ice cream distribution: carrying minus eighteen to the last metre
Ice cream is the least forgiving product in the cold chain: the product itself tells you when you got it wrong. Crystals grow, volume drops, a layer of ice forms inside the pack. And the whole workload is squeezed into three months of the year - three months nobody can justify building a fleet for.
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Producer to store: getting through the chain retailer's door
For a producer supplying a retail chain the job does not end with making the product. There is a delivery slot, there is a thermometer at goods-in, a rejected pallet comes back, and nobody shares the cost of that return trip with you. This page is about the logistics half of getting through that door cleanly.
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Fleet flexibility: growing capacity without buying vehicles
In cold distribution a capacity problem is usually mistaken for a vehicle problem. What the vehicle carries is volume; what produces the cold is equipment. Once the two are separated, growing capacity no longer means growing the fleet.
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Refrigerated vehicle or insulated container: which number decides
There is no single right answer to this question, but there is a single right method: describe your own trip and apply both arrangements to it. The comparison below states, without hiding anything, which one wins under which conditions.
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The running cost of a refrigerated vehicle: an item-by-item worksheet
This page does not hand you a price - it cannot, because the figure depends on the vehicle, the route, the fuel and the insurance. What it gives is more useful: which items belong in the calculation, and how to derive the cost per trip.
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Rent a reefer, buy one, or switch to equipment
The question is usually asked with two options: rent or buy. There is a third route, and in most urban work it leaves both behind: keep the vehicle standard and move the cold into the box. Let us compare all three against the same trip.
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When a refrigerated vehicle is genuinely necessary
The line between a refrigerated vehicle and an insulated container is drawn by the trip itself: carriage time, distance, the door pattern, contract clauses and the cold volume per trip. In six situations the line falls on the reefer side; in most of the work outside them it falls on the container side.
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Carrying pharmaceuticals and medical goods: 2-8 °C and what GDP asks for
The question asked on the pharmaceutical side is different from the one asked in food. There the question is how many hours the cold holds; here it is how you prove it. This page separates what the rule says from where the equipment stands in that picture.
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