Cold Chain

In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based cold chain technology for vaccine cooling track. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused the death of millions of people. An important step towards ending the pandemic is vaccination. Vaccines must be kept under control temperature during the whole process, from fabrication to the hands of the health professionals who will immunize the population. However, there are numerous reports of vaccine loss due to temperature variations, and, currently, people getting vaccinated have no control if their vaccine was kept safe. Blockchain is a technology solution that can provide public and verifiable records. We review the World Health Organization (WHO) cool chain and Blockchain technology. Moreover, we describe current IoT temperature monitoring devices and propose Blockcoldchain to track vaccine cold chain using blockchain, thus proving an unalterable vaccine temperature history. Our experimental results using smart contracts demonstrate the system’s f...

About 1000 privately owned health facilities (HFs) were (re)-visited between September 2007 and September, 2009. A total of 2,100 health workers (HWs) were interviewed in these HFs to evaluate their knowledge on vaccine management and administration. Cold chain assessment form was completed for each HF revisited. Health Workers that were deficient in cold chain management knowledge were given on the spot training. Between September 2007 and March 2009, 90% of fridges in the HFs monitored were non-functioning. 95% of HWs interviewed had little or no knowledge about vaccine vial monitor (VVM) while 80% of vaccines screened were either in stage 3 or 4 of VVM or with VVM indicator removed. During revisits, between March -September, 2009, 92% of fridges were in good functioning state, 84% of HWs had good knowledge of VVM with 9.3% of vials in stage 3 or 4 of VVM or with VVM indicators removed.

Controlling, monitoring and maintaining the temperature of agricultural products in the cold chain is critical to avert the ills associated with this industry. The various segments of the cold chain not only require visibility to prompt the necessary decisions and actions in times of negative events but continuous amelioration of systems and technologies employed for safe, fresh and edible farm produce.

Cold storage is an integral component of postharvest management of many fruits, vegetables and processed products. Cold storage plays vital role in reducing postharvest losses of edible commodities by enhancing their storability and shelf-life. Timely storage of highly perishable and perishable commodities helps in their regular and continuous supply either for table or processing purposes. It is also highly beneficial in price stabilization, proper distribution and marketing of commodities. Realizing the significance of proper and timely storage, a strong growth is being predicted for cold storage industry in near future.  Presently, there are 6,227 cold stores in India and they provide a storage capacity of up to 30.00 million tonnes. Broadly, horticulture/agricultural produce, processed food, animal husbandry produce and pharmaceutical items are being stored in cold stores. This article highlights present status of cold stores, availability, utilization and use pattern of storage space along with major limitations. Article also suggests some of the ways in making the cold stores more effective and diversified in their use.

A análise de investimentos é um recurso crucial para avaliação e tomada de decisão para qualquer investidor que vislumbra qualquer tipo de ganho, seja ele financeiro ou produtivo. Neste trabalho, será apresentado um estudo técnico e econômico quanto a substituição de um equipamento utilizado no congelamento de baterias de gelo utilizadas na distribuição de medicamentos de alta complexidade. A partir das análises apresentadas, verifica-se a viabilidade da implantação de um túnel de congelamento numa distribuidora de medicamentos. Foram consideradas como parâmetros técnicos as premissas estabelecidas na RDC 17 e o Manual de Boas Práticas na distribuição de medicamentos. Quanto às análises econômicas, foram consideradas as análises de custos operacionais, aspectos de depreciação de equipamentos, fluxo de caixa, Taxa Mínima de Atratividade, Payback, Taxa Interna de Retorno e Valor Presente Líquido.
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McDonald‟s is the world leader in QSR. Their presence in 118 countries with 33,000 restaurants glorifies its position as world leader and as fast food giant. This huge network is not easy to manage where guest expectations are clean, hygienic, tasty and quick food every time. The credit of this successful availability goes to the unique supply chain management and control over this entire huge network. McDonald‟s is present in more than 40 cities of India with 250 eating outlets and adding more every now and then. This huge supply chain is entirely outsourced without any legal contact with them. Some unique features of this supply chain managements are lean management, multi-layered supply-chain, cold chain, Hub and Spoke system. For training their staff company takes all its measure through intensive programmes like Supplier Quality Management Systems (SQMS) and the Distributor Quality Maintenance Program (DQMP). The explained model will help to understand the flow of supply chain....

McDonald‟s is the world leader in QSR. Their presence in 118 countries with 33,000 restaurants glorifies its position as world leader and as fast food giant. This huge network is not easy to manage where guest expectations are clean, hygienic, tasty and quick food every time. The credit of this successful availability goes to the unique supply chain management and control over this entire huge network. McDonald‟s is present in more than 40 cities of India with 250 eating outlets and adding more every now and then. This huge supply chain is entirely outsourced without any legal contact with them. Some unique features of this supply chain managements are lean management, multi-layered supply-chain, cold chain, Hub and Spoke system. For training their staff company takes all its measure through intensive programmes like Supplier Quality Management Systems (SQMS) and the Distributor Quality Maintenance Program (DQMP). The explained model will help to understand the flow of supply chain....

Background and objective: Cold chain' is the system of transporting and storing vaccines within the safe temperature range of 2°C to 8°C. Evidence from studies conducted in different countries indicate that good vaccine practices are lacking even in developed and still developing countries. Limited research has been carried out in Ethiopia with regard to cold chain management of vaccines. Thus, this study aimed to assess medicines cold chain storage conformity with the national necessities in public health facilities of Nekemte town. Methods: A facility based cross-sectional study design was employed in governmental health care facilities of Nekemte town from June to July, 2018. A face to face interview using semi-structured questionnaires was used to collect primary data among all health Workers. The collected data was entered and analyzed using SPSS V.20. Result: From the total of 99 study participants 55.5% were males. Among all the respondents' more than half (59.6%) were ever attended training on storage, distribution and handling procedures of cold chain medicines. Even though the national guidelines recommends the storage temperature of most vaccines is between +2°C to +8°C, only about 44 (44.4%) respondents were practicing the recommended temperature range for most cold chain medicines stored in refrigerators. Majority, 69 (69.7%) of the respondents said that storage device equipped with thermometers. Similarly the study indicated that most of the health care facilities (56.25%) had a thermometer in refrigerator. Temperature monitoring being recorded was not statistically significant difference with the compliance with storage temperature (P=0.08) Conclusion: The study revealed that less than half of the respondents did not comply with storage temperature as per the national standard. Indeed, all these affect the quality of temperature sensitive medicines and risk for public health. Health care facilities should develop and adhere to detailed written routine vaccine storage and handling plan.

In Indonesia is still facing the same problem in cold chain temperature on goods that do not fit the standard when shipping. The article will discuss about factors that affect the decrease in temperature of the goods and tools used to control the actual conditions using several methods, especially using RFID and WSN to determine the temperature in the base station, which collects and processes data that will be sent. The research was conducted using a qualitative approach to describe clearly and in-depth activities that have been carried out. From the results obtained is still the lack of transparency of the stakeholders because of the nature of egosistem owned from each party. As found at PT. Multi Terminal Indonesia, which has shown the process that occurs in their cold storage to customers. The results obtained there must be collaboration which symbolized the ecosystem between all stakeholders involved such as the governmentand community (with academics in it) to increase awarene...

Transportation of perishables such as fruits and vegetables with short shelf life in international, long distance and cooled condition, plays a key role in global cold chains. Compared with truck transportation, intermodal transportation largely reduces logistics cost and emissions, however, has less flexibility for disturbances. Another aspect is that truck transportation occupies the largest share in inland transportation, which causes traffic congestion and environmental pollutions. Synchromodal transportation is a known method to study the effectiveness , efficiency and sustainability of transportation by using real-time information. However, limited articles can be found about the cold chain perspective , an integral analysis is missing. Our objective is to thoroughly analyze the characteristics and challenges of synchromodal transportation in global cold chains. The critical successful factors are analyzed at first. After that, we survey on planning problems in strategic, tactical and operational level, respectively. Finally, we conclude by suggesting further research directions.

Background Successful mass vaccination programmes are public health achievements of the contemporary world. While pharmaceutical companies are actively developing new vaccines, and demonstrating results of effectiveness and safety profiles, concerns on COVID-19 vaccine management are under-reported. We aimed to synthesise the evidence for efficient cold chain management of COVID vaccines. Methods The scoping review’s conduct and reporting were based on the PRISMA–ScR 2018 checklist. We searched from April 2020 to January 2022 for publications in PubMed (LitCovid), Scopus and ScienceDirect. All review stages were pilot-tested to calibrate 2 reviewers. Articles on cold chain logistics and management were included, while publications solely describing COVID vaccines, their development and clinical aspects of the vaccine, were excluded. To capture relevant data, charting was conducted by one reviewer and verified by another. Results were analysed thematically and summarised descriptivel...

This study aims to review the Halal Cold Chain Warehouse National Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Halal Logistics in Indonesia.  As Indonesia is the biggest Muslim population in the world and has the opportunity to be Hub of Halal Logistics in the world.  Another issue, the Halal Product Assurance Act (JPH Law) No. 33 of 2014 will soon be implemented in 2019 in Indonesia.  This research was conducted using a qualitative approach because it wanted to clearly and deeply describe the activities that had been carried out by PT. Multi Terminal Indonesia Halal Logistics & Cold Storage as the only one state-owned Halal Warehouse in Indonesia to obtain Halal Cold Chain National Warehouse Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). The objective of this result is to review whether Halal Cold Chain Warehouse National Standard Operating Procedure already issued. The results showed that Halal Cold Chain Warehouse National Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Halal Logistics not yet issued and the derivate regulation of JPH Law from Government called the Government Regulation (PP) not yet released.  For a model suggestion, besides Temperature Control, Halal Assurance Control will be embedded in Halal Warehouse activity covering Inbound, Put Away, Storage and Outbound.

Keywords: Halal Cold Chain Warehouse, Halal Logistics, Halal Assurance, Standard Operating Procedure

Post harvest processing of fish products is important for good quality products as well as food hygiene. A study to determine the microbiological quality of fish from Lake Chivero was carried out at selected sites along the fish handling and distribution chain. This followed the implication of fish products in a recent typhoid outbreak in Harare. Samples were collected from lake water and several vending sites in some of Harare's high density suburbs, and this was done on three occasions (March, August and November 2012). Bacterial indicators were used to investigate the quality of lake water, fish from the lake, and various fish contact surfaces to determine the presence and levels of contamination. Swabs on contact surfaces as well as fish samples were taken and tested for total viable bacterial count, total coliforms, faecal coliforms and Salmonella. The highest microbial load of total coliforms was recorded in Kuwadzana, Dzivarasekwa, Warren Park and Budiriro while the lowest load was observed on the cold chain, harvest waters and at White House. Salmonella sp. was present in most samples, and absent from harvest waters. This showed a prevalence of contaminated fish by pathogenic microbes. Total coliforms and faecal coliforms were present in water samples from the lake, suggesting that fish may already be contaminated. However the increase in microbial load along the fish handling chain clearly showed poor handling was resulting in further contamination. This poses serious risk to public health and the local fish trade. The points for effective intervention were the fishermen, landing sites, boats and fish traders.

India has an agrarian economy. More than 52% of it's land is engaged in cultivation and with varying demography across the length and breadth of the nation, India has one of the most diverse vegetative portfolio. Each genre of produce has limits to the timetemperature abuse it can withstand beyond which deterioration starts from within which may not be apparent. We present a logistic model which ensures easy quality management of food produce emphasizing on optimization of produce quality and minimization of wastage and spoilage. The model deals with specific products and their relationship with standard tolerance levels to temperature abuse patterns along with measures to minimize them. We use the basic principles of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) in sync with operational prerequisite programs to devise a robust system helping us achieve the desired level of optimization. Based on the Hub and Spoke model for freight transfer, this model focuses of two fundamental parameters, distance between the point of cultivation to the point of sale and time taken to traverse that distance maintaining the required time-temperature combinations. The algorithm emphasizes on acquiring data that can be utilized to predict a problem and assessment of risk before it occurs. This intervention can be made to mitigate product issues resulting cost impacts using the hype cycle for food supply chain. The system is intended to monitor produce temperature history, chain of custody and helping to ensure that a food is safe and effective throughout the supply chain when reaching its intended consumer.

The article is about the selection and ranking of cold chain logistics service provider in pharmaceutical industry. For this study the diabetics drugs (Insulin) were taken for the cold chain, habitually and typically used in supplying insulin over different merchant.The insulin has to be kept, to be maintained and stored then given to merchants for the usage of customer requirement.The major objective of this paper is to select and rank alternative logistics service provider for the manufacturer, since there were many logistics service provider in India.This proper channels has to be properly done and maintained by the third party logistics provider, where from the multi criteria decision making purpose AHP and FAHP technique are to be used for selecting the best service provider. KEY WORDS Cold chain, pharmaceutical industry, ranking, AHP and FAHP technique.

This paper analyzes the limitations of the current vaccination supply chain and describes how a novel technology-the Nanopatch-could bypass many of them. By analyzing data on the current supply chain, it is derived that most of these confines are related to the need for refrigeration of vaccination solutions, human error, and poor infrastructure, which result in high wastage and, consequently, consume a significant portion of the restricted health care funding in developing countries. However, research on the Nanopatch reveals that it encompasses characteristics that alleviate most of these limitations, most notably eliminating the need for refrigeration through a high thermostability achieved by dry-coating the vaccine on the patch-like applicator. Furthermore, other limitations related to refrigeration, usage and wastage are reduced as well, thereby facilitating distribution, storage and handling. Moreover, the Nanopatch requires only 3% of the dosage of injections to induce immunization, leading to cost-savings and new pharmaceutical possibilities. By relating these characteristics to the current supply, it is shown that the implementation of the Nanopatch could have major implications for health care by eliminating factors restraining a ubiquitous distribution of vaccines worldwide.

Cold chai unit merupakan peralatan sistem dingin untuk penyimpanan berbagai vaksin agar tidak rusak, pembuatan jurnals ini adalah pengembangan yang dapat dilakukan dalam alat cold chain unit dengan menabahkan fitur pesan singkat. Dengan suhu yang sudah ditetapkan yaitu 2-8 derajat celcius. Penulis memberikan modul Gsm sebagai monitoring suhu apabila suhu sudah lewat dari batas yang sudah ditetapkan dan akan langsung mengirimkan pesan yaitu berupa pesan singkat bahwa suhu sudah melewati batas. Safety alat ini menggunakan sensor switch apabila pintu terbuka dan tidak ditutup, serta aki sebagai backup pada saat tidak ada listrik. Tujuan penulisan karya tulis ini adalah untuk mendapatkan gambaran yang nyata tentang alat cold chian unit, berupa teori yang menunjang seperti prinsip kerja dan hubungan alat ini dengan vaksin kemudian diberikan kepada manusia hingga komponen yang dipakai, juga memaparkan tentang cara kerja rangkaian peltier, rangkaian relay dan sensor suhu DS18b20, rangkaian modul gsm808 dan Rangkaian Display yang menampilkan suhu di dalam chamber.

Kata Kunci : Manajemen strategi, cold chain unit, pesan singkat

Background: Vaccines are biological products that promote immunity activation in children. Vaccines content are susceptible and need more treatment in temperature (20C-80C), storage, and use during the delivery process to health service centers. Purpose: This study aims to determine the cold chain management of basic immunization vaccine in health service centers, South Solok Regency. Method: This research is a qualitative study. The sampling is done by using purposive sampling technique. This research was carried out at the health service center in South Solok Regency. This study uses primary and secondary data sources. The source of primary data is taken by in-depth interviews, while secondary data comes from document review and observations of data in 2018. Source and methodological triangulation were performed in this study. Results: The availability of human resources, funds, facilities and infrastructure and work procedures are sufficient, although there is still one untrained health service center staff, lack of vaccine flasks in two health service centers, and lack of voltage stabilizers in seven health service centers. Almost all health service centers have been applied vaccine boxes 20C-80C in vaccine transportation system. Based on the evaluation, only one health service center that need to improve especially in temperature evaluation procedure by thermometer. The vaccine storage procedure has been applied by the health service center. However, the observation noticed three health service centers have problems in time delay in the melting process. Conclusion: The management of the cold chain vaccine in the health service center, South Solok Regency is good.

The temperature of chilled and frozen products along the distribution process must be maintained within close limits to ensure optimum food safety levels. The temperature variation along the vehicle routing sequence is represented by non-linear functions which depend on the process stage (line haul, unloading at customer's premises, local displacements, etc.). The usual vehicle routing optimization strategy is generally based on a TSP (Travelling Salesman Problem) sequence, with the objective of minimizing travel distance or time. It is shown in the paper that in order to maintain the temperature variability within adequate restriction limits, other routing strategies, apart from the TSP criterion, should be considered.

Hal fundamental dalam proses distirbusi produk pangan adalah mempertahankan kondisi sarana yang digunakan dalam proses distribusi agar produk yang didistribusikan sampai ke tempat tujuan dengan kualitas yang masih terjaga. Salah satu cara untuk mempertahankan kualitas produk selama dsitribusi adalah penerapan logistik rantai dingin.

Background: Adverse temperature recording in vaccine’s cold chain is a major issue worldwide and this condition is known to compromise the quality of vaccines very rapidly. In Cameroon, with tropical climate, vaccines exposure to abnormal temperatures is very common. This study was conducted to identify factors associated to abnormal tem-perature recording in cold chain in the North West region. Results: A total of 65 vaccinating health facilities were visited for the study from eight health districts. Concerning type of health facility, 48 (73.8%) of the health facilities were governmental facilities. About 50 (76.0%) of the facilities had a functional thermometer. Among the 50 health facilities with functional thermometer, abnormal temperatures were registered in 10 (20%) health facilities during data collection and 12 (24%) in the 2 months preceding collection. Factor significantly associated with abnormal temperature recording was the absence of an alternative power source (OR =...

Background: Adverse temperature recording in vaccine's cold chain is a major issue worldwide and this condition is known to compromise the quality of vaccines very rapidly. In Cameroon, with tropical climate, vaccines exposure to abnormal temperatures is very common. This study was conducted to identify factors associated to abnormal temperature recording in cold chain in the North West region.

In June 2006, a UK Government Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (defra) funded project to “identify, develop and stimulate the development and application of more energy efficient refrigeration technologies and business practices for use throughout the food chain whilst not compromising food safety and quality” started. The project was a collaboration between 4 top University research groups, an industrial steering group and hundreds of stakeholders from the food and refrigeration industries. This paper brings together the final findings of this project. The complete output of the project can be found on http://www.grimsby.ac.uk/What-We-Offer/DEFRA-Energy/.
In the defra funded project the research programme concentrated on three topics: 1 - mapping of energy use; 2 - identifying new technologies; and 3 - feasibility studies on promising technologies.

Food supply chains are now rapidly moving towards globally interconnected systems with a large variety of complex relationships. This is also affecting the ways in which food is produced, processed and delivered to the market so also agri-food logistics. In a context of globalisation, the development agricultural trade is increasingly determined by the capacity of countries to develop modern infrastructure to facilitate exchanges and the movement of goods as well as to ensure better food security. The strategic geographical position of the Mediterranean area, connecting three continents through trading routes and presenting potential growing markets, makes it one of the most important economic areas for trade in the world. The paper aims at assessing the performance of logistics, exploring the main challenges facing the agri-food trade in relation to logistics, and giving a snapshot on the main opportunities to develop the logistics sector, especially transport and cold chain, in th...

Frequently cold-supply-chain strategists are asked to help develop models for a laudable vision, one that envisions a revenue multiplier for farmers-producers. This Vision is typically presented alongside tactical options, those that focus on enabling small farmers to offset their sales by storing their weekly or seasonal produce, thus avoiding peak season price drops. This is also expected to avoid distress sales due to low shelf life of the perishable produce. Ergo the cold-store, viewed as a buffer that can extend the trade opportunity, conceivably offering safe, risk free storage and defer the sales transaction to a more favourable future date. This tactic lends itself to the core premise that the buying markets will pay a higher value at a later date, when supply patterns are low. This concept is true to an extent but does not leverage cold chain technology to the fullest. This can be termed as only a delaying tactic, as the transactional partners remain the same. In reality, the market does not change, the buyers remain same, and the location continues to be the local mandi. The full extent of the original vision cannot be served merely by storing produce in cold storages, waiting to 'time the market' for the 'right price'. Furthermore, the buying price will stay routed through the original multi-layered value system. This kind of intervention brings no real change in the market environment! At best, the delaying tactic promotes a trading mind-set and brings about none of the major changes that dynamic supply chains can do. By merely deferring an imminent transaction, without any change to the extent and partners of the transaction, the operating model does not truly contribute as a revenue multiplier-that vision can best be arrived at by reaching out, by multiplying the buyers, and as subsequence providing reason to enhance production and productivity. An intervention must lead to creating a win-win situation, one that will balance demand and supply. The strategy to delay a trade does not convert a zero-sum-game into a win-win situation. This is most applicable in case of high perishable goods where short term storing is not an in-depth solution.

Background: Adverse temperature recording in vaccine's cold chain is a major issue worldwide and this condition is known to compromise the quality of vaccines very rapidly. In Cameroon, with tropical climate, vaccines exposure to abnormal temperatures is very common. This study was conducted to identify factors associated to abnormal temperature recording in cold chain in the North West region. Results: A total of 65 vaccinating health facilities were visited for the study from eight health districts. Concerning type of health facility, 48 (73.8%) of the health facilities were governmental facilities. About 50 (76.0%) of the facilities had a functional thermometer. Among the 50 health facilities with functional thermometer, abnormal temperatures were registered in 10 (20%) health facilities during data collection and 12 (24%) in the 2 months preceding collection. Factor significantly associated with abnormal temperature recording was the absence of an alternative power source (OR = 6.5, p = 0.03). Conclusion: The absence of an alternative source of power was significantly associated with abnormal temperature exposure in the 2 months preceding data collection. To improve on the quality of vaccines administered in North West region, each vaccinating health facility must have at least two sources of power supply.

The objective of this research is to propose a model to articulate Colombian horticultural production chain as a mechanism for managing the interactions between actors for the flow of materials with the cold chain as a logistic-technological tool for the conservation of perishable foods. Based on a sequential construction methodology, a link and segment model is proposed for the Colombian horticultural sector. The model integrates the activities from the input suppliers to the final customer or consumer, identifying their descriptors. Consequently, the cold chain models proposed in the literature are conceptualized and characterized trough a critical control point’s analysis (exogenous and endogenous), based on the HACCP system, selecting the synchronized supply chain model. The joint and superimposed analysis of these two models becomes the articulated design, which allows directing the adaptation of technology in transportation and storage of products under appropriated cold chain conditions for fruits and vegetal products as a competitive advantage.

Inventory routing problem considers inventory allocation and routing problems simultaneously, in which the replenishment policies and routing arrangement are determined by the supplier under the vendor managed inventory mode. In this paper we study deterministic inventory routing problem in a pharmaceutical supply chain with a distributor and multiple geographically dispersed retailers. Two types of products are considered, first refrigerated which need temperature-controlled vehicles to be delivered and second non-refrigerated. Therefor our problem is defined in a cold chain which is a temperature-controlled supply chain. Vehicles capacity and holding capacity of retailers is consist of refrigerated and non-refrigerated parts. We propose a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model. The objective is to minimize the sum of transportation and inventory costs. We also propose an adaptive large neighborhood search heuristic to solve the problem. In the initialization phase of the algorithm, a two phase heuristic algorithm is proposed. We used standard data sets to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm.

McDonald"s is the world leader in QSR. Their presence in 118 countries with 33,000 restaurants glorifies its position as world leader and as fast food giant. This huge network is not easy to manage where guest expectations are clean, hygienic, tasty and quick food every time. The credit of this successful availability goes to the unique supply chain management and control over this entire huge network. McDonald"s is present in more than 40 cities of India with 250 eating outlets and adding more every now and then. This huge supply chain is entirely outsourced without any legal contact with them. Some unique features of this supply chain managements are lean management, multi-layered supply-chain, cold chain, Hub and Spoke system. For training their staff company takes all its measure through intensive programmes like Supplier Quality Management Systems (SQMS) and the Distributor Quality Maintenance Program (DQMP). The explained model will help to understand the flow of supply chain.

In this study we delineate the role of Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in the development of cold chain in the Perishable Food Supply Chain (PFSC) in India. We have considered the case of the fruits and vegetables sector to understand the development of the cold chain to handle existing problems from the farm to fork stage. It is our aim to analyze the status quo of the cold chain, the challenges, that exist, the current and future policies which could be formulated to enhance the development of the cold chain.

Cold-chain has colloquially been interpreted as cold warehousing, and primarily equated as yet another medium to store surplus agricultural produce, to meet delayed or deferred demand. Whereas this model may be applicable for a small range of perishable produce, the far larger opportunity from cold-chain arises when it is applied as a dynamic integration of a chain of logistics activities, to expand the selling range of perishable produce. This paper discusses these aspects from the Indian perspective, with special focus on fresh horticultural produce. The discussions emphasise the role of cold-chain logistics, and how it serves as an enabler for improving the efficiency of agriculture. The paper explains the untapped opportunity of using cold-chain to connect farm output with wider markets, instead of merely using cold warehousing to build inventory waiting for local demand to resurface.

Background The main elements of effective vaccine cold chain management at the immunization service delivery point are well-trained vaccine cold chain handlers, vaccine storage equipment, and appropriate vaccine management procedures. Vaccine cold chain handlers must have enough expertise to provide the correct vaccine at the right time, maintain vaccine potency, and minimize vaccination failures. The study assessed knowledge of vaccine cold chain handlers on vaccine cold chain management, adherence to the WHO vaccine storage codes and vaccine cold chain management practice at primary health facilities in Dalocha district of Silt'e zone. Method Institutional-based cross-sectional study was done at twenty-eight primary health facilities. One hundred forty primary health workers were drawn from four health centers and twenty-four health posts operating in Dalocha woreda of Silt'e zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia. A self-administered questionnaires and on-spot observation checklists were ...

McDonald‟s is the world leader in QSR. Their presence in 118 countries with 33,000 restaurants glorifies its position as world leader and as fast food giant. This huge network is not easy to manage where guest expectations are clean, hygienic, tasty and quick food every time. The credit of this successful availability goes to the unique supply chain management and control over this entire huge network. McDonald‟s is present in more than 40 cities of India with 250 eating outlets and adding more every now and then. This huge supply chain is entirely outsourced without any legal contact with them. Some unique features of this supply chain managements are lean management, multi-layered supply-chain, cold chain, Hub and Spoke system. For training their staff company takes all its measure through intensive programmes like Supplier Quality Management Systems (SQMS) and the Distributor Quality Maintenance Program (DQMP). The explained model will help to understand the flow of supply chain....

The temperature of chilled and frozen products along the distribution phase must be maintained within close limits to ensure optimum food safety levels. The temperature variation along the vehicle routing sequence is represented by nonlinear functions which depend on the process stage (line haul, unloading at customer’s premises, local displacements, etc.). The usual vehicle routing optimization strategy is generally based on a traveling salesman problem (TSP) sequence, with the objective of minimizing travel distance or time. It is shown in the paper that in order to maintain the temperature variability within adequate restriction limits, other routing strategies, apart from the TSP criterion, should be considered.

Background: Adverse temperature recording in vaccine's cold chain is a major issue worldwide and this condition is known to compromise the quality of vaccines very rapidly. In Cameroon, with tropical climate, vaccines exposure to abnormal temperatures is very common. This study was conducted to identify factors associated to abnormal temperature recording in cold chain in the North West region. Results: A total of 65 vaccinating health facilities were visited for the study from eight health districts. Concerning type of health facility, 48 (73.8%) of the health facilities were governmental facilities. About 50 (76.0%) of the facilities had a functional thermometer. Among the 50 health facilities with functional thermometer, abnormal temperatures were registered in 10 (20%) health facilities during data collection and 12 (24%) in the 2 months preceding collection. Factor significantly associated with abnormal temperature recording was the absence of an alternative power source (OR = 6.5, p = 0.03). Conclusion: The absence of an alternative source of power was significantly associated with abnormal temperature exposure in the 2 months preceding data collection. To improve on the quality of vaccines administered in North West region, each vaccinating health facility must have at least two sources of power supply.

Super-cooling is the phenomena where the temperature of a solution or food material is reduced below its freezing point without ice crystallization occurring, due to an energy barrier that must be surmounted before nucleation starts.  When ice crystallization begins the temperature is raised to the freezing point.  The point at which nucleation is initiated may be referred to as the ‘nucleation point’ or ‘metastable limit temperature’.
Recent studies at FRPERC, as presented in this paper, have found significant (as low as -14.6°C for some vegetables), and surprisingly stable, super-cooling to occur in a wide variety of vegetables (such as garlic, shallots, peppers, broccoli and cauliflower).  These studies have also demonstrated that some vegetables (such as garlic, shallots and peppers) can be stored at temperatures significantly below their freezing point (as low as -10°C for some products) for weeks without freezing occurring.  Further studies, also presented in this paper, have begun to investigate super-cooling in seafoods and have shown similar phenomena in products such as prawns.  This phenomena has implications in both chilled, super-chilled and frozen storage of such products.