Overcome the Unique Challenges of Shipping Food and Beverage Products

Transporting food and beverage products is a complex operation that demands specialized equipment, meticulous planning, and strict regulatory compliance. Unlike general freight, food and beverage products have unique requirements to ensure quality, safety, and timely delivery. 

InTek Intermodal has years of history providing shippers with real options using intermodal services that fit these particular requirements. Below, we outline key challenges and solutions we've seen and used on thousands of food and beverage shipments over the years.

Perishability and Temperature Control

The Challenge:

Food and beverages are often perishable and require specific temperature settings to maintain freshness. Dairy, fresh produce, frozen foods, and even beverages can spoil if not kept within their required temperature range. Variations in temperature during transit can lead to quality degradation, spoilage, and financial loss.

The Solution:

• Temperature-controlled shipping via refrigerated trucks and intermodal containers (reefers): Modern reefers use real-time temperature monitoring to detect fluctuations and prevent spoilage.
• Pre-cooling and insulation: Trailers and containers should be pre-cooled before loading, and insulation must be checked.
• Dray inspections for intermodal: With intermodal shipping the rail portion is unattended, making it vital for the drayage carrier to provide thorough pre-trip inspections. This ensures containers meet food-grade standards, temperature-control systems function properly, and the shipment complies fully for its journey.

Regulatory Compliance

The Challenge:

Food and beverage transportation is heavily regulated to ensure consumer safety. Carriers must adhere to the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which requires meticulous documentation of handling procedures, cleanliness, and temperature control throughout the supply chain - understandable as the end consumers actually consume these products.

The Solution:

• Train staff on FSMA requirements.
• Use advanced tracking systems to maintain compliance.
• Conduct regular audits and inspections to ensure food safety protocols are met.

Fragility of Packaging

The Challenge:

Many food and beverage products are packaged in fragile containers, such as glass bottles, or require special handling due to their weight or sensitivity to movement. Improper stacking or sudden jolts during transit can lead to damaged goods.

The Solution:

• Use specialized loading techniques, cushioning materials, and load bars to stabilize shipments.
  • For intermodal shipments, have the intermodal provider provide the load diagrams and blocking and bracing requirements to ensure safe transport.
• Train staff on safe handling and stacking procedures to minimize damage.

Seasonal Demand and Tight Delivery Windows

The Challenge:

The food and beverage industry experiences seasonal demand spikes, such as during holidays or harvest seasons. Additionally, products must often be delivered within tight time frames to ensure freshness, particularly for items with short shelf lives.

Some food and beverage shippers play the weather at various times during the year by not using reefer options, which drive transit and recovery concerns if issues do arise. This practice can be particularly troublesome for intermodal.

In addition to the above, the following are also critical when talking deliveries for food and beverage shipments:

• Delivery appointments are crucial.
• Carriers must navigate multiple appointment portals.
• Fines are common for early or late deliveries and even late pick-ups, regardless of on-time delivery.
• Appointments are often booked far in advance, leaving little room for error.

The Solution:

• Use advanced logistics software to optimize routes and predict demand surges.
• Coordinate closely with truckload carriers and when moving via an intermodal service ensure strong drayage partners are on a food and beverage lane to facilitate and manage delivery schedules.
• Develop contingency plans to avoid missed appointments and reduce penalties.
• For intermodal services, make sure of the following:
  
  • You are working with a reputable IMC that will put service first.
  • Within that IMC, you're communicating with the IMC’s operations leadership, not a salesperson. Why? The operations team will know the consistently reliable routes that operate everyday to meet the required transits, so that you are not putting your freight at risk. And reputable IMCs will not accept food and beverage business they know that they cannot succeed with for the customer.

Risk of Contamination

The Challenge:

Cross-contamination during transit poses serious health risks. For example, raw meat transported near fresh produce can compromise food safety.

The Solution:

• Enforce strict hygiene protocols and segregate incompatible goods.
• Some carriers use dedicated fleets for specific food product categories to ensure its safety.

High Costs and Specialized Equipment

The Challenge:

The cost of food and beverage transport is high due to specialized equipment (reefers), temperature control, and regulatory compliance. As mentioned earlier, some shippers opt for dry trailers or containers versus reefer equipment to save money at certain times of the year, but this creates risks:

• Transit times are critical: Delays can cause spoilage.
• Freezing risks: Some commodities will freeze if not moved quickly.

The Solution:

• Optimize load planning and routes to maximize efficiency.
• Use energy-efficient reefer units to reduce costs.
• For dry containers, monitor transit times closely to avoid product spoilage or freezing.

Geographical, Weight, and Weather-Related Challenges

The Challenge:

Long-distance trucking can expose shipments to extreme weather conditions—heat, cold, or storms—which can affect refrigeration, risk shipment integrity, and delay deliveries.

For intermodal shipments, weight limitations add complexity. Truckload trailers can carry 45,000 pounds, whereas intermodal freight is limited to 43,500 due to the heavier weight of containers and chassis.

Additionally, rework and recovery can be difficult with food and beverage shipments because of regulatory compliance, and:

• Long wait times at food warehouses are common.
• Some drayage providers avoid food warehouses because their business model requires them to have many turns a day, something that's less guaranteed in these scenarios.

The Solution:

• Use real-time weather monitoring to plan alternate routes and avoid delays.
• Pre-plan weights to comply with intermodal limits.
• Partner with reliable IMCs with a deep and reliable drayage network that can manage wait times and minimize recovery issues.

How to Overcome Food and Beverage Shipment Challenges

Transporting food and beverage products across the country requires a combination of advanced technology, regulatory compliance, and proactive problem-solving.

For intermodal shipping, addressing issues like weight limitations, delivery appointments, and container quality requires strong partnerships with reliable IMCs that are familiar with the challenges associated with the food and beverage business and have proven experience overcoming them.

Partnering with experienced logistics providers means shippers can ensure the safe, high-quality, and timely delivery of their food and beverage products—keeping shelves stocked and consumers satisfied.

If you’re curious about whether intermodal is right for your business, just reach out. Our team is here to guide you through the benefits and help you make the best choice for your logistics needs. We'll work with you on flexible solutions that fit you best. For more information about InTek, or logistics and supply chain issues in general, check out our Freight Guides.