Some questions which pop-up:
- What do you use as standard? When is it to warm or cold?
For food safety reasons, it should be <40F.
- What kind of corrective actions could be taken?
Infra red Temp guns or other temp monitoring devices should be used to determine the temp of the vehicle prior to loading of a perishable product containing load. If temperatures are found higher, driver of the vehicle should be advised to lower the temperature of the reefer. A 20 min cooling period should be allowed for proper cooling of the product holding area. Once the temperature is achieved (<40F), product can be loaded. As mentioned in one of the above post, most of the drivers are scheduled regularly at one place, so if the same driver is coming to your place, he/she will be prepared next time and you might find the vehicle below desired levels at arrival.
- What is the purpose of the measurement? I mean you have contracts/agreements with transporters about the transport temperatures. They know which temperatures the vehicles should be. And it is only at that moment. You don't know the temperature of the whole trip to delivery.
I wish if everyone could do what they say/commit in modern times , unfortunately that is not the case. Also there are chances of the reefer breakage, driver negligence, etc.
There are data loggers or TTR (time & temperature recording devices) that companies use to verify the maintenance of cold chain and to record if any deviation occurred during the transit of the product.
Here is a good read by Global Chain Alliance (refer to page # 34 for the checklist that you might need to maintain as part of your records and checks):
https://www.gcca.org...uide _ v3.0.pdf