How digitalisation can revolutionise waste in the reefer container industry

Reliability is important for all businesses that ship their goods around the world. However, when it comes to refrigerated goods, an unreliable supply chain with no or low visibility can result in costly losses, with products wasted enroute to their end consumers.

Not only can this be financially devastating to companies that engage in cold chain logistics, but when we think of all of the products that the reefer industry transports, from fruits and vegetables to vaccines, this waste can have an outsize impact on the health and well-being of regions. Therefore, it is more important now than ever to integrate digitalisation to reduce waste in the reefer industry.

The problem in reefer transportation: food waste

Despite efforts by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) to end world hunger and malnutrition by 2030, challenges have grown during the past years of the pandemic and global political instability. The unfortunate fact is that more than one-third of the world suffers from moderate to severe food insecurity, according to an annual report released by the FAO in 2021. At the same time, there is a high degree of lost and wasted food, creating a painful disparity.

The United Nations Environment Programme's 'Worldwide Food Waste' findings report that roughly one-third of all food produced annually for human consumption is lost or wasted. Amongst those losses are common reefer container cargo, as fruits and vegetables ranked highest, with forty to fifty percent of all farmer's yields reaching the bin instead of the refrigerators of end consumers.

Of course, there are many reasons why and how food can be wasted at any point of the supply chain; enroute, in retail, or with the end consumer. Unfortunately, the FAO has been able to trace forty percent of all food waste to the supply chain itself. Obviously, in an ideal world, no food would be wasted on the journey from farms to the plates of consumers, especially when there is such a high need for food around the world. However, it is not only food that is being wasted when it comes to cold chain logistics.

The problem in cold chain logistics: medical waste

The World Health Organisation has estimated that globally up to half of all vaccines are wasted every year due to cold chain logistics issues and lack of temperature control at the final storage site. In a world where many countries are still experiencing the fatal effects of Covid-19 these wasted vaccines cost lives.

The recent Covid-19 pandemic led to a boom in vaccine demand the world over, also breeding higher degrees of complexity when it came to transporting these vaccines. Though the majority of vaccines must be transported and stored within the narrow temperature range of two to eight degrees Celsius in order to remain effective, Covid-19 vaccines required cooler-than-average temperatures for storing and transportation, ranging from minus 20 to minus 70 degrees Celsius depending on the manufacturer.

This means that reefer containers must maintain this precise temperature range from first pick-up to final drop-off and must account for the differences between different vaccines and their unique needs. This complexity can create issues when vaccines have to travel from cold to warm climates, or when they must switch modes of transport.