Keep everything coming up roses: protect fragile cargo from temperature excursions
Key Takeaways:
- Latin America is a key player in the global market for perishable goods, supplying a large share of products like avocados and roses. These exports are vital to the region’s economy and meet high demand from consumers worldwide.
- Perishable goods suffer from quality degradation when exposed to inappropriate temperatures. Even minor fluctuations can result in premature ripening of fruits or faster decay of flowers, necessitating strict temperature control throughout the supply chain.
- Maintaining the required temperature during transportation involves complex logistics, facing challenges such as transportation delays, equipment malfunctions, and inadequate storage facilities.
- SpotSee’s solutions, MaxiLog Alert and MaxiLog PDF offer effective, proactive temperature monitoring so export companies can optimize logistics, maintain product quality, and protect their reputation by ensuring that food and flowers reach global markets in optimal condition.
Latin America (LATAM) is a pivotal player in the global market for perishable exports such as food and flowers. The region produces 75% of avocado and 34% of rose exports. Rich in diversity and climatic advantages, the region excels in delivering high-quality perishables destined for dinner tables and decor across the globe. The success of these exports is crucial for the region’s economic health and the global supply of fresh produce and vibrant floristry.
Perishable goods like fresh fruits, vegetables, and floral products are inherently sensitive to environmental changes, especially temperature variations. Factors such as humidity, heat, and light can heavily influence the longevity and freshness of these products. Temperature control is essential as the backbone for maintaining quality, extending shelf life, and, reducing spoilage.
The Impact of Temperature Excursions on Quality
Temperature excursions occur when perishable goods are exposed to temperatures – either too warm or too cold – outside their optimal preservation range. Even minor fluctuations can trigger detrimental biological and chemical reactions. For instance, tropical fruits may ripen prematurely, and delicate flowers like roses wilt or decay faster under unsuitable temperatures.
The Challenges of Temperature Stability in Supply Chains
Maintaining temperature stability within cold chain logistics is a complex orchestration involving multiple transfer points – from farms to processing centers, onto airplanes or ships, and finally to overseas markets.
Common issues such as transportation delays, equipment malfunctions, and inadequate storage facilities can lead to unwanted temperature excursions, making the effective management of these conditions a logistical priority.
The Role of Data Loggers in Ensuring Quality
Innovations in technology offer solutions like data loggers for temperature monitoring throughout the supply chain. These devices are crucial to track temperature levels, enabling quick action when deviations occur. Among the benefits are adherence to safety standards and waste reduction, enhanced traceability, and compliance with international trade regulations.
These devices monitor temperatures within containers or storage facilities confirming they have remained within the required parameters, thus preserving the integrity and quality of the products and reducing waste. They also provide:
- Auditing: Continuously monitoring temperature data means detailed traceability throughout the supply chain. Each stage of the transportation or storage process can be audited to ensure compliance with prescribed temperature standards. This level of traceability is crucial for identifying at what point a deviation occurred and helping to improve processes to prevent future occurrences.
- Standards compliance: Many industries are regulated to ensure product safety and quality are preserved when reaching consumers. Accurate temperature monitoring helps ensure compliance with these international standards for food safety, making it easier to pass inspections and audits.
- Reputational protection: Maintaining product quality until its arrival at the destination is imperative for protecting brand reputation. High-quality goods delivered consistently can enhance a company’s reputation in the global market, leading to increased trust and customer loyalty. On the other hand, frequent temperature deviations resulting in compromised product quality can detrimentally affect a brand.
Data loggers also enable proactive logistics management. By having continuous tracking and into the condition of goods, logistics teams can make informed decisions about shipping routes, packaging methods, and even transit timing to optimize the supply chain.
SpotSee®’s Solutions Enable Effective Temperature Monitoring
SpotSee’s advanced temperature data logging solution, MaxiLog, accurately records temperature situations for when every degree matters. The product line measures temperatures from -80°C to +72°C to provide the right solution for sensitive shipments like food and flowers.
MaxiLog Alert
The MaxiLog Alert series combines robust temperature monitoring with simple data retrieval in a palm-sized design using the built-in USB interface with direct download to software. Available for standard and low-temperature monitoring, these single and multi-use loggers provide options for:
- Customized start time delay
- Sampling intervals
- High and low alarm values
- Alarm type
- Measurement data
MaxiLog PDF
MaxiLog PDF is a single-use, 90-day temperature data logger with USB connectivity and PDF reports. The logger is completely pre-programmed with a standard start delay of 30 minutes to allow it to adjust to the internal temperatures of the shipped cargo, making it perfect for use in cold chain applications for food and flowers – refrigerated products that require temperature validation. This unit easily fits inside small packages and automatically downloads the data to a graph summary when you plug it in.
By utilizing SpotSee’s temperature data logger solutions, exporters can proactively manage their temperature-sensitive logistics, protect their international reputation, and ensure that consumers worldwide enjoy the freshest produce and the most vibrant flowers LATAM offers.
Protect Your Fragile Exports with SpotSee
SpotSee offers a full range of monitoring solutions to keep food products safe and floral products blooming across the supply chain. To learn more about how MaxiLog Alert and MaixLog PDF products monitor temperature control for your LATAM cold chain, contact our sales team.
