The last ten years have seen a renaissance in insulated packaging for food and pharma, whether that’s delivering frozen goods, sending medical supplies via courier or transporting large shipments in refrigerated vehicles.
Changing consumer habits, environmental concerns, breakthroughs in technology and the growth of online shopping have seen more and more companies look to find the right temperature controlled packaging solution for their products.
But while the many factors involved in designing chilled packaging seem complex, the basic principles behind temperature controlled packaging are actually simple.
For a start, the science is simple. Chilled and frozen packaging is about controlling Mother Nature’s constant urge to equalise the temperature inside and outside your package. The best solution will be a packaging combination that ensures your contents arrive at their destination at the right temperature, having held Mother Nature at bay for the requisite amount of time.
To achieve this, knowledge and guidance is everything. When considering insulated packaging for food or a chilled delivery solution for pharma, the key first step is to ensure you have the right information to hand.
We handle the complex part of the equation for you. Sometimes that can include refining through testing the correct combination of components to optimise your passive packaging solution.
That might include how long your product will be in transit, the type of transportation or delivery method used, the size of box needed, the level of protection required from insulation and the weight you might want to achieve for any package.
You should also know not only the temperature required on delivery, but the optimal temperature your goods should be when they are placed in the box.
Then there is the question of coolants. In deliveries of chilled goods, ice packs, frozen gel packs or other coolant systems can be used to help control the temperature inside the package. Chilled deliveries sent by overnight courier, for instance, may require ice packs. For some products, separators are useful to separate the contents from touching the ice pack of coolant.
However, another significant factor is the temperature the contents are at when it is placed inside the packaging. For a chilled delivery, this can be crucial in ensuring your packaging works to its optimum capabilities. Whether you’re looking for insulated packaging for food or the best way to send dental supplies, getting the temperature right at the start of your product’s journey will help ensure it is right when it arrives at its destination.
Then there is your chosen insulation. Woolcool®’s 100% real wool liners provide superior insulation to manmade materials such as polystyrene and are more flexible and light, often meaning you can get more product into a package, or indeed use a smaller box to reduce costs.
And returning to our Mother Nature analogy, the natural benefits of wool, having evolved over millions of years to keep animals warm, are perfect for keeping the contents of your packaging cold too. We have ten years’ worth of scientific data to prove it.
On top of that performance, you also get impeccable ‘green’ credentials – wool is recyclable, reusable, biodegradable, breaks down in seawater and is abundantly available too. Wool doesn’t need any extra complex processing mixing materials together, nor does it need any additives to create our pioneering and simple liners. It is just Wool, 100% Wool, the way nature intended (just cleaned a bit!)
Frozen products present different challenges, but the principles remain the same. In insulated packaging for food, for instance, you will again have to choose the right size box, coolant and insulation, as well as ensuring your product is at the optimum temperature when it is placed in the package.
The length of journey is also crucial in packaging frozen goods.
If you are delivering larger quantities of frozen goods – perhaps on pallets using refrigerated transport – you should also consider any potential breaks in your refrigerated delivery chain, when you will have to rely on properly-designed insulated packaging for food to protect your contents.
All of these many factors combine to produce the packaging solution that’s right for you. But while this may seem dauntingly complex, it is actually just three simple points to consider:
• The temperature of your product when it is boxed
• What temperature it needs to be on delivery
• How you achieve that goal
Woolcool® can offer the advice and guidance you need to put together all of these factors. With over ten years of experience – during which we have spent millions of pounds of research and development – have provided us with the expertise and data to help you find your perfect temperature controlled packaging solution.
All of our packaging products have been created using this research, which ranges from in-house testing in our climactic chambers to academic work at Cambridge University.
The beauty of our range – and the 100% real wool that we use as insulation – is that our products are incredibly flexible, allowing us to arrive at a bespoke packaging solution for clients.
We handle the complex part of the equation for you. Sometimes that can include refining through testing the correct combination of components to optimise your passive packaging solution. Sometimes it can be as simple as providing a ready-made solution that we know – after years of experience – will be right for your needs.
From dispatching delicious ingredients to your door to couriering life-saving pharmaceutical products, and from insulated packaging for food to delivering treats for much-loved pets, temperature controlled packaging has never been more popular.
By understanding your basic requirements, coupled with our expertise and knowledge in temperature control, Woolcool® is ready to provide the packaging solution that slots perfectly into what is always a complex supply chain.
