It is important that blood and blood components be transported and maintained at the same temperature that they are stored at. The correct temperature for blood products varies according to whether the product is red blood cells, blood platelets, frozen plasma components or fractionated blood products.

Blood must stay between 2 – 6 Degrees Celcius

Ambient blood products stay at 10 – 25 Degrees Celcius

Platelets need to be stored between 20 – 24 Degrees Celcius

The ideal way to transport blood is to use insulated polyurethane shippers packed with gels packs.  All packing methods should be validated for various transport times and environmental temperatures. These validations ensure that contents of the boxes are maintained at the correct temperature for the duration of the anticipated transport time.  CoolPac can validate for domestic and international shipping for 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours and 96 hours +.

Call us to discuss your specific needs on 1300 266 555

Palmer and Harvey is a specialist nationwide distribution service for the UK convenience store market. With their 1,000 strong fleet, they supply ambient, fresh, chilled and frozen to a range of small, medium and large retailers.

As with any distribution company Palmer and Harvey are constantly searching for operational efficiencies. Following a series of detailed tests, they discovered that they had more consistent temperature control for sensitive produce using Olivo insulated containers rather than refrigerated trucks. This, together with the containers’ reliability, meant Palmer and Harvey thought Olivo containers would fit well into their system.

Addition benefits have been better space optimisation on their vehicles, reduced CO₂ emissions, lower fuel consumption and lower energy costs. Vehicle fleet and required staff have also reduced thus making even greater cost savings.

Palmer and Harvey opted to use the Siber System which injects liquid carbon dioxide into a special compartment at the top of each container to create “snow” for temperature control. The tanks are charged with special computer-controlled “guns” with the liquid gas from a refrigerated pressure tank owned, maintained and supplied by Air Liquide. An important aspect of the Siber System is that the dry ice injection station computer automatically adjusts the injected amount to specific operational parameters – thus making a considerable cost saving. The carbon dioxide is “green” as it is a recovered and purified product.

Logistics and Development Director, Richard Slater, has been with Palmer and Harvey for 3 years and has a wealth of previous experience with Exel. He said recently…

We deliver to every UK postcode area every day and we couldn’t do that without our integrated network operating with flexibility. Using the Olivo insulated containers provides us with distribution efficiency and customer satisfaction.

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Olivo Industrial Quality Insulated Containers.

The benefits are numerous:

• One truck can deliver both chilled and frozen foods.
• Product quality is ensured by minimising temperature variations along the cold chain.
• Products are easily rolled into the stores where they are unpacked from the containers directly into fridges and freezers.
• Frozen product can be kept in the insulated containers for long periods, eliminating the need for storage freezers. Refrigeration costs are reduced and storage space gets used more efficiently..
• Modular containers with different internal configurations are suitable for meat storage, seafood or dairy.

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Olivo Industrial Quality Insulated Containers

This premium bakery chain bakes and delivers cakes, pastries, bread and savouries as well as ice cream. Baked goods must be kept at a constant + 0 to 4 degrees Celsius and ice-cream at – 18 degrees Celsius at all times.

Rather than use expensive refrigerated trucks, they chose Olivo insulated containers to transport pastries and ice cream to their retail stores. The containers allowed them to transport chilled, frozen and ambient goods in a non refrigerated truck resulting in significant cost savings on trucks and delivery consolidation.

Their Olivo containers were fitted with wheels, and this alone provided significant benefits.

• Lifting heavy boxes was no longer an Occupational Health and Safety issue.
• The thermal exposure and unnecessary strain on refrigeration equipment that frequently occurs when loading and unloading goods was minimized. The containers were easily wheeled…
  • Into fridges or freezers to be loaded or unloaded.
  • Between truck and storage area.

The bakery also found that additional stock could be stored in the insulated containers until space became available in the chilled display cabinets later in the day thus increasing the quantity of product available for sale.

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Olivo Industrial Quality Insulated Containers.

CoolPac was contacted by a Sydney based Clinical Research Organization to review its international Cold Chain for its clinical trial transport. Their present system was cumbersome, costly and unvalidated.

We began by interviewing key staff in the organization. We then reviewed their cold chain methodology so we could understand to what extent their cold chain requirements were being met. In order to develop a cold chain profile, it was important to understand the…

• Shipping route and destination for humidity and temperature profiling.
• Courier details including timetables and vehicle types.
• Time of each travel leg. A trip with long rest periods in hot transition areas poses different cold chain issues than one where the transition areas are cold.

At the conclusion of this phase it was clear that the organization’s cold chain could be improved.

Having developed a cold chain profile, we then developed a cold chain solution that could be tested in our shipping validation facilities. Our facilities allow a transport environment to be replicated and the integrity of the cold chain environment monitored. Our aim was to propose an “appropriately engineered” cold chain solution that could be tested in field trials.

When the validation work was completed it was revealed that only 5-7kg of dry ice was needed instead of the 10-12kg being used presently.

Field trials followed and these included logging the temperature of the consignment every five minutes. When the temperature logs were analysed the cold chain was found to have been maintained and so was validated.

As a result of validating their consignments for use with CoolPac’s Polyurethane Foam Insulated Shippers, this organization now uses around five kilograms of dry ice per consignment compared to twelve kilograms previously. This translates into savings of $150-$250 on freight per container. With 15-20 consignments each week, not counting the elimination of dry ice top ups, this translates into savings in the order of $117,000 each year.

An unexpected benefit of the process was the peace of mind for our customer. CoolPac’s validation included generous allowances for delays in challenging environments. This organization can now be confident that a delayed consignment does not translate to spoilage of their clinical research material.

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Polyurethane Foam Insulated Shippers, wireless thermometer, temperature data loggers, Shipping Validation, Cold Chain Auditing

Blue Circle couriers manage Sigma Pharmaceuticals’ Melbourne Pharmacy distribution.  They deliver to 450 pharmacies twice a day. Products such as vaccines must be kept at +2 – 8 degrees Celsius.

Blue Circle found its procedure of transporting temperature sensitive products such as vaccines in an esky with an ice brick along with room temperature products in a one tonne van to be costly, inefficient and environmentally unfriendly. Having decided to search for an alternative, Blue Circle initially deemed a plug-in camper fridge to be unsuitable.

Next, Blue Circle evaluated CoolPac’s Olivo range of Polyurethane/Polyethylene passive refrigeration containers. These containers use phase change Eutectic Plates to maintain container within a desired temperature range (ambient, chilled or frozen).

In their extensive field trials Blue Circle loaded CoolPac’s Olivo BAC55 container into a one tonne delivery van, packed it with orders, and then made two delivery runs between 7am and 4pm, with a total of 13 openings.

CoolPac’s Olivo BAC55 container not only maintained the required temperature range of + 2-8°C during the field trial, it also produced an unexpected and welcome result for Blue Circle. Blue Circle found that because CoolPac’s Olivo container could maintain a correct temperature range overnight, drivers could hold product returns over until the next morning when collecting their next consignment.

Tom Szabo, General Manager of Blue Circle Transport says…

These containers are the best system for quality cold chain distribution I have seen…. They will give Blue Circle, who delivers to over 450 pharmacies twice a day, a validated system ensuring a quality cold chain at all times.

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Olivo Industrial Quality Insulated Containers.