A Short Guide to Shipping Frozen Food

Posted on Friday, August 7th by

We need to eat daily in order to survive and fortunately for us, we are spoilt for choices. Finding foods that we enjoy and craving for them regularly has never been easier. However, we do not always get to enjoy these foods, despite being able to acquire them from wherever they may be available. Frozen food shipping businesses provide a solution to this problem, delivering our favourite treats to us while still fresh. Of course, this depends on whether the shipping is done properly or not.

Here is what you need for shipping frozen food:

- Frozen food
- Insulated containers
- Plastic liner, wrap or bags
- Newspapers or Styrofoam
- Dry ice
- Gloves

How to ship frozen food

First and foremost, you must buy dry ice. Packing dry ice into the container along with the food is the only way to keep it fresh during shipping. You should be able to find a dry ice carrier in your area. However, if you fail to do so, you can try to find some online. Dry Ice Directory is one of the websites that can help you out. All you have to do is to provide the area code and it will provide a list of the carriers in your area where you can make your purchase from. The amount of dry ice you will need to buy will depend on the size of the shipment. However, you should buy enough of it to be able to replace about five to ten pounds of it every 24 hours.

Second of all, it is just as important that you wrap the food in plastic. Packing dry ice is not enough of a precaution. By wrapping the food in plastic you will prevent any potential contact between the food being shipped and the ice, thus minimising the risk of spoiling.

Also, you need to make sure to pack the shipping container. It is very important that the container be insulated when handling such sensitive shipments. The best recommendation is a urethane container measuring a minimum of 2 inches in thickness. Otherwise, you will need to pack more dry ice in order for the food to stay frozen. Note that the dry ice must be placed on top of the frozen food, as close to it as possible. Also, make sure that you have put on the gloves before handling the dry ice. The remaining space will be filled with newspaper or Styrofoam for the food to stay frozen for longer.

Once you have gone through all these steps, you can proceed to the actual shipping. In fact, you should ship the food right away. You should consider overnight shipping as your best option despite the higher costs for the shipping times are the shortest in this case. And they should be as short as possible because usually, the dry ice can only keep the food frozen for as long as 48 hours. Therefore, this is your best chance at delivering the food while still frozen.