Transportation

Both rail and road are used for the transport of refrigerated goods. Road, however, is becoming the more favoured method as it is much more versatile and cost efficient. Long distance and/or large quantity shipments take place in refrigerated trailers, most commonly refrigerated by mechanical refrigeration.   Thermo King, however,  are now also supplying combined CO₂ and mechanical refrigeration systems.

For distribution of part-filled trailers, from producers or intermediate storage to retailers, smaller and more flexible refrigeration solutions are needed. The food service industry (who purchase and distribute food to hospitals, hotels, restaurants, catering companies etc) also have a need to employ this mode of transport. Refrigeration systems, which are container based, for example FlexiCold and FlexiTemp^TM are perfectly suitable for this purpose.

Air transport is normally only used for transport of high value products, usually food or pharmaceuticals. The most common refrigeration solution is Dry Ice refrigerated specially-designed air freight containers. As short lead times are becoming more and more important, refrigerated air transport also becomes more and more common.

Sea transport will most often be part of a long distance, intermodal journey (ie transportation takes place over land, before and after). The most common refrigeration solution today is using integrated reefer containers, with most vessels having more than a 1000 reefer slots (container capacity).  These have a standard reefer container size capable of storing several tons of product.  Each container has it's own refrigeration system that can be controlled individually.