Does your small business specialize in selling perishable goods to your customers? If so, one of the biggest challenges you’re going to face is figuring out how to ship refrigerated food without it spoiling.
As you might imagine, it can be very difficult to ship refrigerated food to those who buy it from you. You need to come up with a carefully calculated system that allows you to go about shipping refrigerated food in the most efficient manner possible so that you can do it without breaking the bank.
Want to find out how to do it? We’ve put together a guide that should help you tremendously when it comes to packaging refrigerated food and getting it to your customers in the quickest way that you can.
Here are some food business tips on how to ship refrigerated food from start to finish.
Create Packaging That Will Keep Your Products Cold When Shipping Them
The first thing you’re going to need to do when you’re trying to figure out how to ship refrigerated food is come up with the right packaging for it. You’re going to need packaging that is going to keep your products cold when you place them inside.
There are lots of different types of packaging products that you can use to seal your products that need to be refrigerated. Some of your best options are going to be:
- Styrofoam boxes
- Styrofoam sheets
- Insulated liners
- Insulated pads
The packaging products that you use should be chosen based on the size of the products that you’re trying to ship. They should also be chosen based on how well they’re able to insulate your products and keep them cold while en route to their final destination.
Determine Whether Ice Packs or Dry Ice Will Work Better for Your Products
Once you have packaging all picked out for your refrigerated products, the next thing you’ll want to do is determine how you’re actually going to keep your products cold when they’re being shipped. There are two main options that you’ll have.
Your first option is going to be ice packs. If you go with this option, the ice packs that you use will be placed inside your packaging with the products that you’re selling to people when they’re shipped.
Your second option is going to be what is called dry ice. Dry ice will be placed on the outside of your packaging to keep your products cold.
Dry ice is usually the more effective of the two options. But it’s going to cost you a little more in most cases, and there will also be restrictions placed on you when you use it to ship products. This could result in it being more trouble than it’s worth in the end for some small businesses.
Still, you should think about which of these two options is going to get the job done for you. It’ll be one of the biggest decisions you’ll make when learning about how to ship refrigerated food.
Consider Working With a Co-Packer to Make and Package Your Products
Do you have the resources to create your perishable goods, package them up, and surround them with ice packs or dry ice? Not every small business is cut out to do all of this.
If you don’t feel as though your company is up for the challenge, then your business needs a co packer to lend a hand. They’ll be able to take care of everything for you so you don’t have to do it yourself.
Figure Out Who Is Going to Handle Shipping Your Products
Regardless of whether you’re going to put together your company’s refrigerated packages yourself or hire a co-packer to help, you’re going to need to work with one of the major shipping companies to actually ship your products. These companies will include FedEx, UPS, USPS, and others.
You’ll need to do some research into how each of these companies goes about shipping perishable goods. You want to make sure they’re ready to take on such a challenging endeavor. You also want to make sure they’re going to be able to deliver your products fast since you don’t want them sitting on an airplane or on a truck for any longer than absolutely necessary.
Calculate What It’s Going to Cost to Ship Your Products
In addition to seeing how the companies that we just mentioned will handle shipping your perishable products, you should also crunch the numbers and see what it’ll cost to ship products through each of them. You should speak with someone from each company and let them know that you’re planning on shipping a large number of refrigerated products through them and see what kind of deal you can work out.
By doing this, you should walk away with a much better idea of what it’ll cost you to ship your products throughout the country. It’ll give you an opportunity to see if it even makes sense to do it.
Test Your Shipping Solutions Out to Make Sure They Work the Way You Want
If you decide to move forward with shipping refrigerated food to your customers, you’re going to want to test out the shipping solutions that you put into place first. It’s imperative for you to make sure that your products are going to hold up time and time again when you ship them.
Attempt to ship your perishable goods to different parts of the country and take note of the results. You shouldn’t start shipping your products for real until you’re satisfied with the way in which you’re able to ship refrigerated food.
Learn How to Ship Refrigerated Food Before You Begin Doing It
It’s not impossible to learn how to ship refrigerated food. There are thousands of companies that do it every single day.
But it’s going to be a big challenge to come up with the best solutions for shipping refrigerated food. Use the tips that you’ve seen here to finetune your shipping methods before you get started.
Poke around on the rest of our blog to get more useful business tips and tricks.
