Cool chain
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| Terms | |
|---|---|
| Foodborne illness | |
| Hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP) • Hazard analysis and risk-based preventive controls (HARPC) | |
| Critical control point | |
| Critical factors | |
| FAT TOM | |
| pH | |
| Water activity (aw) | |
| Bacterial pathogens | |
| Clostridium botulinum | |
| Escherichia coli | |
| Listeria | |
| Salmonella | |
| Vibrio cholerae | |
| Viral pathogens | |
| Enterovirus | |
| Hepatitis A | |
| Norovirus | |
| Rotavirus | |
| Parasitic pathogens | |
| Cryptosporidium | |
| Entamoeba histolytica | |
| Giardia | |
| Trichinella | |
A cold chain is a temperature-controlled supply chain. An unbroken cold chain is an uninterrupted series of refrigerated production, storage and distribution activities, along with associated equipment and logistics, which maintain a desired low-temperature range. It is used to preserve and to extend and ensure the shelf life of products, such as fresh agricultural produce,seafood, frozen food, photographic film, chemicals, and pharmaceutical drugs. Such products, during transport and when in transient storage, are called cool cargo. Unlike other goods or merchandise, cold chain goods are perishable and always en route towards end use or destination, even when held temporarily in cold stores and hence commonly referred to as cargo during its entire logistics cycle.
Mobile refrigeration was innovated in 1940 by Frederick McKinley Jones, who founded Thermo King.
Cold chains are common in the food and pharmaceutical industries and also in some chemical shipments. One common temperature range for a cold chain in pharmaceutical industries is 2 to 8 °C (36 to 46 °F). but the specific temperature (and time at temperature) tolerances depend on the actual product being shipped. Unique to fresh produce cargoes, the cold chain requires to additionally maintain product specific environment parameters which include air quality levels (carbon dioxide, oxygen, humidity and others), which makes this the most complicated cold chain to operate.
This is important in the supply of vaccines to distant clinics in hot climates served by poorly developed transport networks. Disruption of a cold chain due to war may produce consequences similar to the smallpox outbreaks in the Philippines during the Spanish–American War.
There have been numerous events where vaccines have been shipped to third world countries with little to no cold chain infrastructure (Sub-Sahara Africa) where the vaccines were inactivated due to excess exposure to heat. Patients that thought they were being immunized, in reality were put at greater risk due to the inactivated vaccines they received. Thus great attention is now being paid to the entire cold chain distribution process to ensure that simple diseases can eventually be eradicated from society.
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Wikipedia