Cold chain tracking: a managerial perspective

Most food products are perishable and their shelf life can be greatly affected by temperature conditions in the supply chain: time/temperature control becomes a critical issue in fresh food logistics, and the efficient and effective tracking of cold chain conditions is one of the main points to be addressed. Technical and managerial solutions are available in order to achieve this objective, but no methodologies exist to select the most suitable solution. By comparing two main approaches, this paper proposes structured frameworks to identify the most appropriate managerial solution to be adopted in order to minimise the logistics cost.