Cold storage transportation is just part of the globalization of consumer and producer relationships. Cold storage transportation includes shipping goods globally, regionally, or locally. Grocery’s store and restaurants are at the local level. Regional transportation vehicles support cold storage facilities that ship commercially. Global levels include distributions of medicine, vaccines, and other medical products. Temperature control is crucial to prevent spoilage of goods, and allow medicines to be shipped to any location.
Controlled cold environments are supported numerous ways. Some of the cold storage industries use dry ice, gel packs, eutectic plates, liquid nitrogen, quilts, and reefers. Eutectic plates are cold plates filled with liquid. They are similar to gel packs, and can be reused over and over again. Reefers are a temperature controlled transport unit. This can be a truck, trailer or ISO container.
Reefers, or refrigerated cargo trucks, are refrigerated by an electrical supply. This can be a clip on generator or an underslung generator. To keep temperatures consistent a unit is designed with a prefixed range. These units maintain temperature with a sensor and add cool air when necessary. The product is already cooled to a special temperature, via the warehouse. As technology continues to develop, reefers will become better at monitoring temperature.