Refrigerated Transport: How to Keep Your Food Fresh During Transportation

Controlling temperatures when transporting perishable food substances reduces the chance of your food going bad. This will ensure food product safety as well as extended shelf life. Here are the best food transport practices that you can adopt.

1. The Pre-Trip Inspection

First, conduct a thorough inspection of the transport refrigeration unit and the trailer. The inspection ensures that you don't compromise the quality of the food you are transporting. Part of the inspection should involve deactivating all the alarms that you had set previously. Besides, the driver should inspect the trailer thoroughly to confirm that it has no physical deformities. The driver should also ensure that the unit has fuel enough to keep it running to get your food products to the final destination.

You should set your desired temperature levels before the loading of the food products begins. It is important to set the temperatures lower than usual. By so doing, you allow the condition to remain constant even if some air escapes the unit when packing your products into the truck.

Check and confirm that you have followed all the pre-cooling procedures before loading any product into the vehicle. This will ensure the integrity of the product even under very low temperatures. 

2. Keep the Temperatures Constant During the Refrigerated Transport

Maintaining proper temperatures when transporting your food products will ensure that the shelf-life of your food product is not compromised. You can keep the temperatures constant during the refrigerated transport through the following mechanisms:

 Use Switches to Lock the Doors

Ensure that your trailer is not running before you start packing food inside the vehicle. If the trailer is running, hot air might enter the trailer, and this could compromise the shelf life of your food commodities. To avoid this completely, install automatic switches that will automatically turn off the unit any time you stop along the load to offload some products. The controllers ensure the safety of the products no matter the number of times you stop on the way.

 Stimulate Airflow and Circulation

Proper airflow throughout the vehicle helps to regulate the temperatures. That is important, especially for bringing down the temperatures of your trailer's parts that might be overheating. When loading the food products, arrange them properly to allow the air to flow freely and adequately.

Other than the two procedures, avoid taking too many stops as this might compromise the quality of the product.

To keep food fresh when transporting it, you need to use the best practices that guarantee that. When you adopt the best procedures, you will deliver the food without compromising its quality, and you will also extend its shelf life. To get help transporting food, contact a refrigerated transport service.