How to Ship Frozen Meat - Frozen Food Shipping

Hauling frozen meat may seem like a challenging task, but it’s completely manageable under the right circumstances and with the correct approach.

The successful transportation, whether it’s across a few blocks or throughout the entire country, means understanding how to ship frozen meat safely so that it arrives fresh and ready to use.

This guide will outline the best practices for shipping frozen meat, which include a combination of packaging materials and dry ice or gel packs. We’re also going to help you avoid potential issues and bypass well-known obstacles that may impact the quality of the meat during transportation.

What Is the Best Way to Keep Frozen Meat Cold During Shipping

There are many different ways to keep frozen meat shipped successfully to its destination, no matter how long the haul is. An important part here is keeping the meat at the right temperature to preserve its best quality, which is one of the most popular frozen food shipping techniques.

Here are the most common methods:

• Dry Ice: The most popular and effective cooling solution is shipping frozen meat with dry ice, which keeps everything below freezing for as long as necessary.

• Gel Packs: The gel packs, on the other hand, have shorter longevity and are mainly used for local shipments, keeping the meat cool for a while.

• Insulated Foam: Using layers of insulated foam inside cold shipping boxes is another great way to reduce temperature and protect frozen goods shipping from the heart.

• Double Bag: In addition to other cooling methods, to enhance efficiency, you can place the meat inside two sealed bags to create an extra layer of heat protection.

How to Ship Frozen Meat without Dry Ice

Many people are wondering how can I ship frozen meat without dry ice, while being afraid that dry ice is the only option out there.

It’s not as difficult as you would imagine!

We understand that shipping frozen meat brings a lot of challenges, especially when dry ice is too much of a hassle for you. However, dry ice is far from mandatory, even when the hauling of frozen items is long, so we’re about to reveal some neat techniques that you can use separately or combine for ultimate defrosting protection.

Consistent Cooling

If you want to provide your frozen food with consistent cooling throughout transit without any dry ice, gel packs would be the perfect way to achieve this.

These gel packs provide consistent temperature control, making them perfect for any freezer goods shipping process, whether it’s short or long. However, some preparation is required, as you must pre-freeze the gel packs and contain them in double-bags to prevent fast defrosting.

Then you can surround the meat on all sides, ensuring no gaps. Whenever the first batch of gel bags starts to defrost (~2 hours), you need to replace them with the second batch, which should be kept in a double-bag and still cold.

This way, you can carry out significantly long routes without any dry ice.

Layered Insulation

If you are not using dry ice at all, in addition to the gel packs, you need to deploy another layer of defrosting protection, such as “insulated foam” or ”insulated box liners”.

This ultimately helps in the reduction of any temperature fluctuations, not only keeping your meat cool, but also lowering the rate at which your gel packs defrost. This method works ideally with other packaging materials that we’ll discuss next.

Extra Barrier Protection

The double-bagging technique is the ultimate way of keeping your frozen meat cool during transportation by adding protection against leaks, moisture, and temperature changes. When you pair double-bagging with gel packs and insulation foams, you can definitely carry out even the longest routes without worrying about the frozen meat.

Challenges and Risks of Shipping Frozen Meat

Even when you have all the preparation right, shipping frozen meat comes with challenges, which in most cases are imminent. So, getting to know these challenges and how to prevent them before they arise is really the key to a successful haul.

Choose the Right Packaging Materials for Frozen Meat

When it comes to frozen food shipping, the packaging material is just as important as the way and combination of methods for defrosting protection.

There is a wide range of frozen meat shipping boxes, varying from insulated boxes to sturdy corrugated cardboard boxes and cold shipping boxes; so, it can be a bit overwhelming at first, especially if you have never been involved in cold shipping before.

To understand better which packaging material to use, here are some types of meat and how to package them correctly to prepare them for temperature-regulated shipping:

As you can see, the best way to ship frozen meat is ultimately a combination of packaging techniques, boxes, and the correct approach.

Choose the Right Freight Carrier for Shipping Frozen Food

Selecting a freight shipping service for shipping meat, which must be kept under strict temperature control, is quite an important hassle.

The most critical part is to evaluate providers that only specialize in handling frozen items and offer reliable delivery times with cold chain management.

You need to consider multiple shipping options, compare costs, and choose the one that offers the best transportation, not the one with the lowest rates.

How Much Does It Cost to Ship Frozen Meat

Understanding the shipping frozen meat costs, and estimating your circumstances, is the best way to find the cheapest way to ship frozen meat without impacting the quality. The cost to ship frozen meat depends on several factors, so let’s take a look:

We hope that you have now learned how do you ship frozen meat and, in general, how to ship frozen food by understanding packaging, methods, and hauling options.