As global discussions gather momentum around shifting frozen food set points from −18°C to −15°C, the Australian cold food industry must pause and consider the unique risks this poses to its cold chain logistics, especially in refrigerated transport. While there may be energy savings in static environments like warehouses, the implications for transport, where most cold chain failures occur, could be far more complex.
A one-size-fits-all approach will generate many challenges, but there are practical, sustainable alternatives for Australia’s unique cold chain landscape.
The International Institute of Refrigeration’s (IIR) Three Degrees of Change Report 2023 (IIR Position Paper in IJR: Frozen food at −18°C or… | 2025/05/22) has sparked international interest by proposing a tiered model for frozen storage:
- −18°C for high-sensitivity products
- −15°C with a +1°C tolerance for medium-sensitivity products
- −15°C with a +3°C tolerance for low-sensitivity products
The report suggests that adjusting frozen storage temperatures could reduce energy consumption across the cold chain by approximately 10%. However, in AIRAH’s HVAC&R News, Summer 2024–25 edition (Why refrigeration set points matter | HVAC&R News) refrigeration expert Dr Michael Riese said that such a model ‘has the potential to lead to significantly reduced food safety outcomes and is highly unlikely to generate the promised savings in energy and money.’
Refrigerated transport: Where flexibility meets friction
While transport refrigeration systems from manufacturers like Thermo King and Carrier can technically maintain tight set points, real-world conditions in Australia make this precision difficult to sustain.
Refrigerated transport environments are dynamic, not controlled labs. Factors such as:
- frequent door openings
- inconsistent loading practices, and
- thermal efficiency variability across refrigerated transport equipment
introduce challenges that compromise the stability of the cargo environment. Maintaining a tight tolerance, especially +1°C at −15°C, increases system cycling, leading to higher fuel use, mechanical wear and reduced reliability.
By contrast, a +3°C tolerance allows greater flexibility but edges product temperatures dangerously close to −12°C, a critical threshold where quality degradation can occur. For example, the IIR notes that vitamin C levels in frozen spinach decline noticeably at −15°C over 90 days.
Refrigerated transport is designed to maintain temperature, not reduce it
To function efficiently, product must enter the trailer within 1.5°C to 2°C of the set point. If not, thermal mismatches can lead to unnecessary defrost cycles, misleading sensor readings and unstable temperatures, increasing the risk of spoilage and compromising food safety.
In electric refrigerated vehicles, such inefficiencies directly affect battery range and delivery reliability, undermining the targeted sustainability gains this temperature change aims to deliver.
Australia’s wildcard: Distance and distribution challenges
Unlike densely populated countries with short, urban delivery routes, Australia’s cold chain spans thousands of kilometres and depends heavily on long-haul transport and cross-docking. Linehaul routes often exceed 1,000 kilometres, traversing regions with extreme temperatures and variable climate conditions.
Cross-dock facilities in Australia are not typically designed for multi-temperature frozen operations. These hubs function as fast-turnaround transit points – not storage warehouses. Their design typically limits the feasibility of maintaining separate frozen zones. As a result, facilities may default to the coldest required set point ( −18°C for example) to avoid compromising product integrity, driving up energy costs and refrigeration load when warmer goods enter the facility.
From energy savings to supply chain strain
The IIR’s report itself acknowledges several unintended consequences of a temperature shift:
- reduction in shelf life of frozen foods with respect to sensory quality changes by around 30%
- need for thicker, less space-efficient packaging
- greater food wastage if the food industry reduces shelf life as displayed on the packaging.
As Dr. Riese adds ‘the extra 3˚C protects us from harm when delivery truck refrigeration units fail, when the doors are open too long, or during extraordinarily hot days when the onboard units are simply not capable of keeping truck interiors cold’.
And failure is not a fringe issue in Australia. According to the Australian Cold Chain Guidelines 2017, developed by the Australian Food and Grocery Council, (Australian Food Cold Chain Logistics Guidelines) ‘the average food moves in and out of refrigeration 14 times before consumption’. This alone highlights the exposure to risk, with each handover, transfer, or storage step creating a potential point of failure if not carefully managed.
Introducing multiple frozen set points would trigger costly fleet upgrades, from installing secondary evaporators to investing in multi-temp trailers. Alternatively, splitting loads across two trailers (one at −15°C and another at −18°C for example) would likely compromise trailer space utilisation, increase cost per kilogram, increase cross-docking and multiply supply chain emissions, especially in rural and regional deliveries.
Furthermore, the current practice of verifying temperature compliance by checking pallets at the front, middle and rear of a trailer is inadequate for a multi-temperature model. SKU-level validation would be needed, a costly, time-consuming change that smaller operators may not be equipped to handle. The result? A higher risk of product rejection, delivery delays or worse, compromised goods being accepted without detection due to the absence of SKU-level verification.
It’s also common practice to rely on return air temperature to verify that a load has been maintained at compliant temperature during transit. In rejection cases, this return air data is often used as evidence of carrier performance. However, when product at different temperatures, particularly warmer than the set point, is loaded into a single-zone refrigerated trailer, it can significantly raise the return air temperature as that heat circulates toward the evaporator.
In these cases, even if the refrigeration unit is operating correctly, the return air temperature may appear noncompliant. This increases the risk that carriers are incorrectly targeted for temperature deviations caused by thermal imbalances introduced during loading, not refrigeration failure. Introducing multiple frozen temperature categories into a single temperature zone makes this risk more pronounced and further erodes the clarity of accountability in the cold chain.
A cold chain-compliant process requires a product temperature check at every handover. This step ensures that the temperature maintained during the delivery of the product is accepted by the receiver of the product, in a compliant state. These checks uphold the integrity of the cold chain, establish accountability at each transfer point, support root cause analysis when failures occur and help prevent food waste.
When a single frozen temperature standard is in place, determining compliance is straightforward, product is either within range or it is not. However, the introduction of multiple acceptable frozen temperature categories complicates this process by triggering the need for product-specific compliance, particularly if products from different frozen categories are transported on a single trailer. Cross-dock facilities typically lack product-specific temperature records, making it difficult to independently verify whether incoming goods are compliant upon arrival. This ambiguity undermines the integrity of the cold chain process, compromises outbound checks, disrupts traceability and weakens accountability, especially if the end customer rejects the product due to temperature non-compliance.
Frozen storage failures in transport: Why the margin for error is shrinking
Reducing the gap between set point and spoilage temperature tightens the margin for error. The closer a product operates to its failure threshold, the less time operators have to intervene when refrigeration units break down.
This risk is amplified by Australia’s ageing trailer fleet. With a median trailer age of 11.6 years (ARTSA & Trailer Magazine, 2016 Decoding Australia’s trailer market) and an estimated average age of between 7 and 10 years for refrigerated trailers, thermal consistency across the fleet is best described as variable.
Unlike Europe, where the Agreement on the International Carriage of Perishable Foodstuffs (ATP) governs the thermal performance of refrigerated vehicles, there is no mandatory certification system in Australia. Under ATP, refrigerated transport equipment must meet defined thermal performance thresholds for different temperature classes (for example, Class A for 0°C, Class C for −20°C), and trailers are required to undergo recertification every six years to ensure continued compliance. These controls underpin product integrity across borders between member states and provide assurance of fitness for purpose based on load type and distance.
Australia has a similar technical reference standard, AS 4982–2003 (Thermal performance of refrigerated transport equipment – Specification and testing) but it is not enforceable or routinely applied. In practice, many trailers operate without having undergone formal thermal testing, increasing the variability of in-transit temperature control and elevating the risk of non-compliance, particularly if frozen storage thresholds are relaxed.
Cold chain sustainability: Smarter gains without compromising food safety
Australia has far more practical and lower-risk options to improve energy efficiency in frozen storage without compromising product integrity or weakening standards.
Dr Riese in HVAC&R News June edition (IIR weighs in on refrigeration set point debate | HVAC&R News) highlights several operational and infrastructure-focused measures for saving energy in cold storage facilities:
- Upgrade control systems to better handle part-load conditions, allowing refrigeration systems to run more efficiently when full capacity isn’t needed.
- Improve understanding of refrigeration system behaviour among owners and operators.
- Control incoming product temperatures more tightly to avoid unnecessary temperature pull-down loads that waste energy.
- Minimise heat ingress by improving building insulation and managing door openings more effectively.
‘These all have the potential to make significant impacts on energy consumption already, without the need to change storage set points,’ Riese explains. But he adds a cautionary note: ‘These options are already a real possibility but require owners/operators to listen to subject matter experts, rather than jumping onto slogans that sound great but do not address underlying problems.’
Rather than weakening temperature standards, Australia’s most sustainable path forward lies in strengthening cold chain visibility, enhancing infrastructure resilience and building operational discipline. These actions not only protect food safety but deliver the energy savings that sustainability demands without increasing risk.
The Australian cold chain needs fit-for-purpose solutions
The IIR’s proposed changes offer meaningful insights, but any shift in frozen food set points must be assessed through the lens of operational risk, not energy savings alone.
Australia’s vast geography, climatic extremes, fragmented infrastructure and ageing fleet make a one-size-fits-all approach inherently risky. What may work in static warehouse environments could unravel in Australia’s transport-heavy cold chain, the very point where failures most often occur in refrigerated logistics.
Energy efficiency matters. But so does integrity, trust and food security.
While the proposed shift aims to reduce global emissions through energy savings, it’s worth noting that Australia’s food waste alone generates 17.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂-e) emissions annually, a figure comparable to the projected global CO₂ savings of 17.7 million tonnes from moving frozen storage set points from −18°C to −15°C. This comparison underscores the carbon footprint of food waste as a critical environmental factor and highlights the need for more sustainable cold chain practices.
It also raises a critical question: Could greater environmental benefit be achieved by preventing cold chain failures, rather than relaxing the very standards designed to avoid them?
In a country where distance, heat, and limited enforcement converge, relaxing the frozen storage standard without airtight controls, digital traceability and operational accountability invites systemic failure. The risk is not only product loss, but an erosion of confidence in cold chain compliance and with it, increased exposure to food safety, quality and security risks.
As scrutiny over food safety, emissions, and sustainability grows, any shift in frozen storage temperatures must be approached with caution. Without robust monitoring systems and disciplined operational practices, unintended consequences such as product rejection, food waste and reputational damage become significantly more likely.
Reducing energy use in the cold chain is essential but only when achieved through better control, not relaxed standards and without compromising food quality, operational discipline, or trust in cold chain performance.
Adam Wade
Keep It Cool Consulting
0416 082 092
Keep It Cool Consulting offers training that can strengthen your cold chain. From training frontline staff to addressing strategic compliance risks, our cold chain education and advisory services are designed to help you reduce waste, protect product quality and stay ahead of industry change.
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