To ensure quality, Eastern Fish has strict temperature requirements on their in-transit perishable shipments. Frozen containers need to maintain temperatures within 5 degrees F of their setpoint, leaving little room for error, especially when prolonged lead times can test the limits of container cooling capabilities. Defrosting and/or refreezing can quickly spoil a load, which could present risks to food quality and safety and result in missed deliveries and lost profits.
Jacobsen said signs of temperature abuse are quickly apparent upon inspection at the company’s distribution warehouses. “Our warehouse inspectors look for signs of boxes being wet or the formation of ice crystals,” he said. But at that point, the damage already is done.
Container security also became a growing concern for Eastern Fish during recent supply chain disruptions, increasing the likelihood of tampering, theft, or simply losing track of a container’s location. International ocean freight shipments often require the use of transshipments, where containers are loaded onto other vessels and may have several changes of custody before reaching their destination.
During the lead-up to the busy holiday season, the company can average up to 300 shipments per month, with roughly 15 to 20 active shipments at any given time. Jacobsen recalled how some carriers have mistakenly unloaded Eastern Fish’s shipping containers in their own shipyards and described occasions when the QC team lost visibility to in-transit shipments.
Combined, these escalating cold chain challenges on overseas shipments required a new approach to QC. Although the team used temperature loggers to see historic trip data, they knew they needed improved visibility. “Given the supply chain upheaval and so many opportunities for errors, we needed a way to track containers at every step,” Jacobsen said.
Oversight delivers in-transit visibility and remote intelligence
The Eastern Fish QC team turned to the cold chain cargo experts at Copeland, with whom they had already established a valued partnership. Jacobsen explained that his team had leveraged the Oversight portal software platform and temperature monitoring capabilities in its over-the-road trucking network in Mexico. “We knew how effective this was in Mexico, and we wanted to apply these same tools to our ocean shipping lines,” he said.
The team at Copeland quickly went to work, coordinating with Eastern Fish’s international seafood suppliers to set up a real-time cargo tracking infrastructure. The solution was comprised of Go real-time 4G/5G trackers—equipped with temperature and light sensors—and the Oversight portal, which provides real-time visibility to in-transit shipments on demand.