Keeping your cool

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FRANCO NANNA: A member of Cargolux's new 'Keepcool' team, aimed at optimising cool chain processes.

A secure and organised cold chain can provide your company with sustained dividends. We talk with some of the industry's leading representatives to reveal their hints about this ever-increasing sector.

The increasing importance of temperature-sensitive cargo, especially that of pharmaceuticals, is constantly posing a series of new challenges for logistics and transport solutions providers.

Although the industry is not new to the Middle East, where the high temperatures and humidity, together with the often laborious customs environment, can make keeping a cool chain secure even more difficult, the wealth of facilities, such as the dedicated Dubai Flower Centre, are designed to ensure that there are no loose or broken links in the cool chain.

While the cool chain has generally been associated with perishables such as foods and flowers, a significant number of other products also require temperature-sensitive transport.

Pharmaceuticals, which are temperature-tested during testing and manufacture, are especially sensitive; if subjected to the incorrect climate, these can be harmful or even poisonous.

Perhaps even more sensitive than drugs are biotech products such as vaccines, and also blood and blood products, the last of which obviously rely on fast, efficient and secure transportation.

In addition, some hi-tech materials, such as semi-conductors, will also require a secure and temperature-controlled environment and, as a result, the influence of cool chain technology has never been more important to logistics operators.

There is an obvious link between this type of product, however. Whereas the freight of perishable produce such as food involves the air transport of relatively cheap goods in bulk, the movement of pharmaceuticals and hi-tech products will generally involve high-value items.

So whereas a container of fruit and vegetables may only cost a few thousand dollars, a container of pharmaceuticals may run into the millions. In an environment where the price of fuel is starting to pose difficulties for a number of freight operators around the world, the cost-efficient nature of the transport of products which are more expensive is becoming clear.

The not-for-profit Cool Chain Association was established in 2003 in Brussels with the aim of developing standards that would help to guide its members through the pitfalls of transporting perishables and temperature-sensitive products (PTSP).

"The Cool Chain Association aims to harmonise the cool supply chain," explains the association's secretary, Kerstin Belgardt.

"We want our members sitting at the same table, all being part of the same cool chain - despite the fact that members will often be competitors - and to cooperate in order to find the best ways of transporting temperature-sensitive products."

In 2005, the Cool Chain Association created the sector's first ever attempt to set standards for entire logistics industry, the Cool Chain Quality Indicators (CCQI).

This standard allows operators to carry out a check for conformity with state-of-the-art practice and provides a quantitative evaluation for cool chain quality.

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