Webshops: transporting frozen fish and meat fresh is how you do it!
Consumers are increasingly ordering meat or fish online, directly from the butcher or fishery. By eliminating the links, this provides consumers with high-quality meat at a low price – and they don’t have to leave the house for it! As a butcher or fisherman, do you also want to deliver your products directly to the consumer via a web shop, or do you already do this? In this article we will give you all the tools you need to ensure that your artisanal products arrive fresh to the customer!
3 different types of spoilage and how to slow them down
Three types of spoilage can be distinguished when we talk about food spoilage. The best known is biological spoilage, but chemical spoilage and physical spoilage can also be disastrous for guaranteeing the quality of your meat and fish products. Things to keep in mind as a seller, but also certainly as a consumer at home!
- Biological spoilage. This type of spoilage occurs in everything that lives, grows and matures – including fish and meat. Spoilage is caused by the multiplication of microorganisms such as bacteria, yeasts, fungi and viruses. You can prevent this type of spoilage by ensuring a good cold chain: by refrigerating your fish and meat, you already greatly inhibit the growth of microorganisms. Freezing it stops the growth of most microorganisms, although there are some species known to continue to grow even well below zero – albeit a lot slower.
- Chemical spoilage. In meat and fish, for example, we see chemical spoilage in the form of fat oxidation. This creates rancidity, releasing unpleasant odors and flavors, losing nutritional value and breaking down vitamins. Not desirable, of course: you want your meat and fish products to retain nutritional value, quality, smell and, above all, taste. The extent to which fat oxidation occurs depends on fatty acid composition, oxygen, light, temperature and water activity. So with good packaging, you can already overcome many of these risk factors!
- Physical spoilage. You can sense this type of spoilage: you can feel or see it. Think of changing color, texture and smell. Spoilage accelerates when there is too much (day) light and too high a storage temperature – but it can also occur when the cells in meat or fish freeze to pieces and dry out. On its own, physical spoilage is not detrimental to health (possibly in combination with chemical spoilage), but can be detrimental to quality.
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Ensure cold chain during food transport of frozen meat and fish
To slow down spoilage (because, unfortunately, it can never be completely prevented), it is important to protect fish and meat products by proper packaging that protects the food from light, heat, moisture and oxygen. This keeps fish and meat not only safe to consume, but also very tasty.
Coolpack offers freezer trays and super gel packs at -21 °C, -18 °C and -16 °C, among others, which enable freezer transport on a small and large scale. Whether you work with or without return flow, we have a suitable solution. By adding the freezing agents already to the packaging, your fish and meat products remain protected from external temperature influences – even if they have to be transferred several times to other vehicles or storage areas during transport from A to B.
Transporting chilled fish and meat
Don’t freeze your fish and meat products, but want to transport them refrigerated? A common solution are Coolpack gel packs. These are food safe, non-toxic and keep products cooled at a temperature of 0-8 °C.
Tips for frozen shipping frozen fish and meat
- Use a good insulating packing box. To cool or freeze properly, insulating is at least as important as adding gel packs, cooling or freezing elements. So choose packaging with high insulating capacity. Within the fish and meat industry, we find that Styrofoam white Styrofoam boxes (also called EPS boxes) are a popular option. Coolpack supplies these with different wall thicknesses to achieve the required insulation capacity.
- Capture moisture with absorption mats. Melt water can be released during refrigerated and frozen transport. To prevent spoilage, it is important that your fish and meat products stay dry. Therefore, we recommend the use of absorption mats to catch moisture that arises during transport. These come in different sizes with different absorption capacity and we can deliver them quickly.
- Think about sustainability. Many words have been spoken and texts written about the need for sustainability. We are therefore happy to support you in making a sustainable choice within your application. For example, we offer the EcoCoolBox, a fully paper-based, recyclable paper insulation box – which did not win the NL Packaging Award for nothing. For frozen transport, there is the EcoFreezeBox, with extra high insulation capacity. But even better than recycling is reusing: consider whether your logistics processes include return flows or how you could implement this. Instead of gel packs and EPS boxes, you can then choose freezer trays or cooling trays and EPP cooler boxes, which you can reuse very often. So a great option if the packaging materials come back to you or stay in your possession. Did you know that Mission Reuse was commissioned by our Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management to publish their research earlier this year on what it takes to set up return logistics and scale up use of reusable packaging in the Netherlands? You can find the publication here.
Responsible thawing to ensure quality and food safety
In addition to proper freezing, proper thawing is also crucial in ensuring quality. This is because fish and meat are relatively susceptible to bacterial growth, and when exposed to higher temperatures (>4 °C), bacteria can multiply at lightning speed.
Our advice: thaw frozen meat and fish in the refrigerator around 3-4 degrees. This may take a lot longer, but it will maintain the quality and food safety of fish and meat. Less perishable goods such as bread, fruit and vegetables can be defrosted at room temperature.
Want to know more?
Would you like to know more about the possibilities of optimally securing your cold chain by using refrigerated packaging? Feel free to contact us for answers to all your questions or request an immediate no-obligation quote.
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At Coolpack, we are aware of our responsibility to contribute to society. Both in terms of sustainability and society as a social body.
We weigh the interests of the customer, the environment and society, as well as ourselves as an organization, in all business decisions. In this way, we achieve balanced business operations and together ensure an ever better world.
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