Operations
Cold-Chain Best Practices for Fresh Produce Export
A container's temperature record is the difference between a sold shipment and a claim. Here's how we keep the cold chain unbroken from field to port.
In fresh produce export, temperature control isn't a nice-to-have — it's the entire business. A single 4-hour spike above the target range can cost you a container's worth of margin and, worse, a customer relationship built over years.
It starts at the field. We aim to move harvested produce into pre-cooling within 4 hours of picking. For pomegranates, that means forced-air cooling from ambient temperature down to 5°C. For bananas, it's a gentler chill to 13.5°C to avoid chill injury.
The next weak link is the packhouse. We insist on shaded loading bays, insulated trucks, and a live temperature log that follows the produce all the way to the port gate. Every driver has a temperature sheet; every arrival is signed off by our QC lead.
At sea, we ship exclusively in reefer containers with data-logger seals. Buyers can request the full temperature log on arrival — a small transparency step that has, more than once, saved us from a wrongful claim.
None of this is complicated. It's just discipline, repeated container after container.
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