For perishable food products, the temperature of cold storage is monitored through the cold chain to ensure its good quality and safety for consumption. The cold chain is able to control the temperature of perishable products to ensure that they are safe to use and that they are still of good quality when purchased by consumers.
If the temperature is not controlled accurately, it can lead to a range of degradations, including, in addition to changes in general product characteristics, structural changes, color changes, damage from impacts and crushing, and the growth of microorganisms. Each link in the cold chain needs to be controlled from the moment the product is picked until it is sold.
Every link in the chain is susceptible to errors that can break the cold chain, either on the warehouse platform, in transit, in storage, or in the retail supermarket. If one link is broken, then it affects the needs of the final consumer.
Because the cold chain is a supply chain system that aims to ensure the quality of refrigerated and frozen items and maintains a low-temperature environment as the core requirement, it is a huge systematic project with higher and more complex requirements than the general room-temperature logistics system, and the investment in its construction is also much larger.
Because the timeliness of refrigerated and frozen items requires higher organization and coordination of each link of the cold chain, the operation of the cold chain of refrigerated and frozen items is always associated with energy cost, and the effective control of operation cost is closely related to the development of the cold chain of refrigerated and frozen items.
Expanded Information:
Common cold chain products include: agricultural products, aquatic products, frozen food, photographic film, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. The concept of the cold chain was first introduced by Frederick McKinley Jones, founder of Thermo King, an internationally recognized cold chain powerhouse.
Based on the temperature range, it can be differentiated into refrigerated (chilled, 2 ℃), frozen (Frozen, -18 ℃) and quick-frozen (deep-frozen, -29 ℃) cold chain system.
The Cold Chain Quality Indicator (CCQI) is a standardized guideline established by the Cool Chain Association (CCA).
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