Cold chain is the part of a seafood contract that is easiest to write and hardest to prove. Temperatures are simple; evidence is not.
Target temperatures
Fresh and chilled fish: 0 °C to +2 °C, on ice where the packing allows it, maintained continuously from packing to delivery.
Frozen product: −18 °C or colder. Pelagic species with higher fat content are commonly held colder where the facility allows, because surface fat oxidation is the limiting factor rather than microbial growth.
Live shellfish: chilled dry transport with the temperature and duration agreed before booking. Live crab is a logistics operation with a biological deadline; the handling protocol is part of the specification.
Dried products: humidity control matters more than temperature. Store dry, cool and ventilated.
Our ready-desalted klippfisk is specified at −18 °C to −30 °C, with a 365-day total shelf life and 215 days guaranteed remaining at delivery to the end user.
Where chains break
Not usually in the reefer. The failures cluster at the transitions:
- Loading and unloading, where product sits on a dock.
- Cross-docking, where a consignment changes vehicle.
- Customs holds, where a container waits with no plug.
- The last mile, where a delivery vehicle is not built to the same standard as the trunk leg.
- Receiving, where product sits in a goods-in area before it reaches the store.
A chain that is specified end to end but only monitored on the trunk leg is monitored where it is least likely to fail.
Making temperature evidential
Four things turn a temperature clause into evidence:
1. A set point, in the contract. Not “frozen” — a number.
2. Recording. Data loggers in the consignment, not just a reefer set point. Specify how many, placed where.
3. Handover checks. Product temperature taken and recorded at each change of custody, not just at origin and destination.
4. A tolerance and a consequence. What excursion is acceptable, for how long, and what happens if it is exceeded. Without this, a logger download is data with no contractual meaning.
The Incoterm connection
Risk passes at the point the Incoterm says it does, and that point is very often before the temperature-sensitive part of the journey ends. Under CPT or CIP, risk passes to the buyer at the first carrier even though the seller pays the freight to destination. If the chain breaks in the middle, the question of who bears it is answered by the Incoterm, not by who arranged the transport.
Read Incoterms for seafood importers alongside this page — cold chain and Incoterm choice are the same decision viewed from two sides.
Minimum remaining shelf life
Agree it explicitly. A product with a one-year shelf life delivered with two months remaining has met its specification and failed your requirement. State the minimum remaining shelf life at delivery as a contractual term.