Efficient Ways to Pack and Ship Perishable Food Items

Transporting perishable goods has always been a challenge. But over the years, new ways have come up as to how you can pack and ship these items and ensure safe delivery. Foods have always been one of the most challenging items to transport while keeping fresh.

You’re always against staleness, spoilage, hot temperatures, humidity, and time. Thinking that refrigeration alone can solve the whole problem is a lie in futility. If you plan on packing and shipping perishable goods, you can use the steps below to ensure the shipping is efficiently done.

Packing Your Food To Ship

First, identify your packaging needs before you carry out the task. There are different materials used for different perishable foods and many sizes to choose from. For example, when you’re packing pastries, you can purchase bulk dessert boxes in Melbourne. If you want a professional look when wrapping your pastries, you can use heat-sealed plastic. These packs should be airtight and the edges sealed with tape. With this style of packaging, unwanted moisture and heat will be kept out while maintaining freshness.

Create A Plan

Now that you have your packing figured out, you need to have a plan put together for shipping. Preparation is quite crucial when it comes to transporting perishable food items. The timing should be right also to ensure minimal disruptions during the journey.

When making the plan, it would be best if you opt to transport the goods at night. When you transport at night, there’s less traffic on the roads typically, and temperatures are cooler, keeping your foods fresh.

To ensure the best results, shipping should be done fast. Account for, at most, 30 hours for the shipping.

Pad and Pack

When transporting perishable foods, you can easily damage them. For example, cookies may break, vegetables can bruise, and so on. You can avoid this by filing extra spaces with padding. You can pad the additional margins with bubble wraps or other soft material. Use the bubble wraps not only in the crates but also in the shipping boxes. But when shipping fruits, ensure that you have ventilation as humidity can accelerate the ripening process.

Choose the Right Refrigerant

Cold and frozen foods are most sensitive to transport as you need the proper refrigerant for efficient shipping. For example, there are foods that you need to use dry ice with when transporting. When shipping live seafood, don’t use dry ice, and ensure that the food doesn’t come into contact with the dry ice. Do your research before shipping any foods to understand ideal temperature ranges and shipping timelines.

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When shipping foods, you can also use gel packs. Gel packs tend to last longer than dry ice; that’s why they’re used in many scenarios. Also, ensure you use water-resistant wraps if you use this packaging style as it can dampen the food when they thaw.

When using dry ice to refrigerate the food items, don’t wrap them. It may explode and burst due to the carbon monoxide released.

Ship and Enjoy

When shipping perishable food items, you need to be careful as there are challenges. But when you have the right plan, coupled with the right packing items, it shouldn’t be a problem to ship and enjoy.