Cold supply chain concept - Economist

Cold supply chain can be defined as the supply chain that includes maintaining a certain temperature either in transportation or storage processes along the chain to maintain the quality and safety of products.

Cold supply chains are considered a separate science because they include solutions for chemical and biological processes to avoid product damage, in addition to the techniques used to maintain the required temperature during various processes of transportation, packaging, and storage of products.

Below we list examples of products involved in cold supply chains for further clarification:

There are temperature standards by which products are classified according to temperature and are divided into 4 main groups, and therefore there are many techniques and methods used in the cold supply chain, including:

Recently, supply chains have become one of the basic requirements for business success, and the whole world has become like a small village in terms of communication, and the biggest challenge here is the distances that separate the links between the global supply chain.

We note that the greater the distance, the greater the possibility of product damage. Some products are affected by temperature changes during their movement within the supply chain, and this effect can pose a serious threat to human life, especially when there is no transparency from companies.

Cold supply chains have also appeared in difficult times, especially at the time of the huge spread of the Coronavirus through the safe transportation of Covid 19 vaccines, and the German Pfizer vaccine represents a challenge of another kind, as it requires maintaining a temperature of -70 in the vaccine cold supply chain.

While the competing vaccine presented by the Swedish-British pharmaceutical company "AstraZeneca" gave better positive results, as the initial results indicated that it could be stored in a regular refrigerator.