Frozen Food Distributors Benefit from Vehicle Tracking

Food retailers impose strict conditions on the temperature at which they will accept their frozen and chilled foods at. This is because they have to legally adhere to the rules in order to avoid breaking food standard laws. The threshold temperature for frozen foods is -18 degrees.

If frozen food is delivered into a depot above -18 degrees than it has to be rejected. This costs frozen food distributors a lot of money in fuel, and the same is true even if they use consolidators. Charges can be as much as £50 per pallet that is rejected, covering the cost of transporting the pallet back and the administration associated with processing a ‘non conformance’.

Trailers can rise above the threshold temperature because they are constantly being opened and closed as deliveries are made along a route. Distributors try to minimise the time the trunk is open for by placing the pallets that are being delivered first closest to the door. However, it is a challenge for drivers to know how much a vehicle has increased in temperature along a delivery route.

Vehicle tracking can help because some tracking solutions have an alert system that can identify if the trailer rises above a certain temperature, for example -20 degrees. The driver would then have time to close the trunk before the product rises above temperature. This saves companies money and improves their efficiency.