Cold Chain & Fresh Produce Logistics
Cold Chain: For Farmers
What Cold Chain changes for the person actually doing the work.
For the person running the business, the test of any farm software is whether it removes work or adds it. For fresh produce, meat, dairy and fish, the temperature record is the product record. This module manages cold store and vehicle temperature monitoring, handover documentation, breach investigation and the shelf-life implications of every excursion, with the evidence assembled continuously rather than reconstructed after a complaint.
In their words
What the job actually looks like
These are not marketing personas. Each one is a distinct job with a distinct constraint, and the module is designed so that solving one does not create work for the others.
Packhouse manager
Fresh produce despatch
Needs the temperature trace available with every consignment.
- Calibrate and deploy monitoring
- Pre-cool and record field heat removal
- Store at the specified regime
- Load and begin the transit trace
Haulier
Refrigerated transport
Needs alerts in transit, not a complaint on arrival.
- Pre-cool and record field heat removal
- Store at the specified regime
- Load and begin the transit trace
- Monitor and alert on excursions
Retail technical manager
Supplier assurance
Needs continuous data rather than a delivery-point reading.
- Store at the specified regime
- Load and begin the transit trace
- Monitor and alert on excursions
- Investigate and document any breach
End to end
How Cold Chain runs, start to finish
The module is modelled as a state machine, so at any point the business knows exactly which stage every record is at and what has to happen next.
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1
Calibrate and deploy monitoring
This is where the record starts, and getting it right here removes work at every later stage.
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2
Pre-cool and record field heat removal
The platform prompts only for what this stage genuinely needs, and carries everything forward.
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3
Store at the specified regime
Conflicts with scheme rules, regulatory windows and existing commitments are flagged here rather than discovered later.
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4
Load and begin the transit trace
Capture works offline, so this stage is completed in the field rather than remembered afterwards.
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5
Monitor and alert on excursions
Everything recorded at this point becomes evidence automatically, in every format that will later ask for it.
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6
Investigate and document any breach
This is the stage most businesses currently do twice, once for the operation and once for the paperwork.
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7
Hand over with a signed temperature record
Results feed the whole-farm view, so the effect of this stage is visible against the rest of the business.
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8
Report to the customer and review shelf life
The cycle closes here, and what is learned is carried into next season's plan rather than lost.
Capabilities
What Cold Chain does
Every capability below is built on the same underlying record, so entering something once is enough for it to appear wherever it is needed.
Record and plan
- Cold store and chiller temperature monitoring with continuous logging
- Vehicle and reefer temperature telemetry during transit
- Pre-cooling and field heat removal recording for fresh produce
Operate and monitor
- Temperature excursion detection, alerting and investigation workflow
- Shelf-life modelling adjusted for actual temperature history
- Consignment handover documentation with signed temperature confirmation
Comply and evidence
- HACCP critical control point monitoring and verification
- Calibration records for every probe and data logger
- Loading and unloading dock time monitoring
Analyse and improve
- Cold chain equipment maintenance and failure history
- Customer temperature reporting on demand per consignment
- Energy consumption monitoring for refrigeration plant
Traceability
The chain behind one batch
Assurance audits ask you to prove a chain you have already lived. The record is assembled as the work happens, so the audit pack is a printout rather than a fortnight of searching.
BATCH-91188A
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Grown
- Who
- Field parcel
- Evidence
- Cropping record, inputs applied with dates and rates
- Held in
- Field record
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Treated
- Who
- Spray operator
- Evidence
- Spray record with product authorisation and buffer compliance
- Held in
- Spray diary
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Harvested
- Who
- Combine or contractor
- Evidence
- Weighbridge ticket, moisture and specific weight
- Held in
- Weighbridge
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Stored
- Who
- Farm or central store
- Evidence
- Store temperature and drying record, bin allocation
- Held in
- Store record
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Hauled
- Who
- Haulier
- Evidence
- Consignment note and cleanliness declaration
- Held in
- Haulage
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Delivered
- Who
- Processor
- Evidence
- Intake spec, rejection reasons if any, and settlement
- Held in
- Processor
Take the record with you
Worked example
How a business like yours would use Cold Chain
The problem: Needs the temperature trace available with every consignment.
What they do
- Calibrate and deploy monitoring
- Pre-cool and record field heat removal
- Store at the specified regime
- Load and begin the transit trace
What changes
- Consignments with an unbroken trace
- Excursions per thousand consignments
- Shelf life delivered against specification
This is an illustrative worked example built from the module design, not a customer reference. Named case studies are published only with the business's written consent.
What we are hearing
The problems people describe to us
These are composite statements drawn from user research conversations, not attributed customer quotes. We publish named references only with written consent.
I am not short of software. I am short of one place where the same field means the same thing in all of it.
The scheme closed on a Tuesday evening. I had the application half built. Nobody told me the budget was nearly gone.
We farm on both sides of the border. Everything takes twice as long and I still cannot see the whole position on one screen.
Audit week costs me three days. Every single record they ask for is already written down somewhere on this farm.
Measurement
How you will know it is working
The module reports against these measures from the day it is switched on, so the value is demonstrable rather than assumed.
- 01Consignments with an unbroken trace
- 02Excursions per thousand consignments
- 03Shelf life delivered against specification
- 04Claims and rejections
- 05Refrigeration energy per tonne
Free assessment
Find out where you stand in about ten minutes
A structured assessment producing a scored report with a prioritised list of what to fix first, and what it is worth fixing.