Industry
Food and drink: three clocks running at once
Food freight is governed by three things at the same time — the temperature the goods need, the date on the packaging, and, for alcohol, a duty regime that the absence of a customs border does not remove.
The shelf-life clock does not stop for the transport
A consignment of fresh or chilled product is worth less on arrival than it was on departure, and past a certain point it is worth nothing. That makes a food movement unusual: the cost of a delay is not a penalty clause, it is the value of the goods.
Retail consignees typically require a minimum remaining shelf life on delivery, and a load arriving inside that window can be rejected while being perfectly sound. The date on the packaging is therefore part of the transport plan rather than a commercial detail behind it.
Temperature is a specification, not a setting
Chilled, frozen and ambient-but-must-not-freeze are three different regimes with different equipment and different loading patterns, and some products need a range rather than a single figure. The specification comes from the product and is the shipper's to state.
Refrigerated equipment maintains a temperature; it does not bring a warm load down to one. Goods loaded above specification generally arrive above specification, and the failure is in the cold chain before the vehicle rather than on it.
Alcohol moves under a duty regime inside the single market
Excise goods — alcohol in particular, and also tobacco and energy products — travel under their own control system between European Union member states, entirely separately from customs. Duty suspension, the movement documentation and the guarantees behind it apply even though no customs declaration is made at any frontier.
This is the requirement most often missed by shippers who have correctly concluded that intra-Union movements need no customs formality. The rules are detailed and they change; the position for a specific movement should be confirmed with the relevant tax or excise authority.
Hygiene travels with the vehicle
Vehicles and equipment carrying food are subject to hygiene requirements, and a trailer's previous load matters. Where a tank or a bulk unit is being reused, the receiving party will normally want evidence of what it last carried and how it was cleaned.
For palletised packaged goods the practical requirements are usually simpler, but the principle holds: a food consignee is entitled to ask what else has been in the vehicle, and a shipper is well advised to know the answer before the question.
Common requirements
What shipments in this sector usually need.
- A stated temperature regime, as a range where the product needs one
- Goods loaded at temperature rather than expected to be brought down in transit
- A temperature trace for the journey where the consignee requires evidence
- Minimum remaining shelf life on delivery, agreed before the movement rather than after
- Duty-suspension paperwork for alcoholic drinks, which travels with the load and is unrelated to any customs formality
- A delivery booking, since most food receiving runs on slots
Quoting
What to describe in a request.
- The temperature specification, or a clear statement that the goods are ambient
- Whether the delivery date is governed by a date code rather than by convenience
- Whether the consignment includes excise goods, which is a separate regime from customs
- Pallet count, loaded height and stackability — food loads are frequently unstackable and that is expensive
- The delivery point's booking arrangements and whether it will refuse an out-of-slot arrival
From cargo to requirement
Describe what the goods demand of the movement.
Handling, dimensions, timing and site constraints are more useful than an industry label on its own.
European road freight