Because you want your goods to arrive at the right locations at exactly the right time and in the right condition, shipping always requires your care and attention. However, as the calendar turns to the winter months, you need to be especially careful with your shipping logistics.

Snow, ice, high winds, low temperatures, and more hours of darkness can all put your freight at risk. Fortunately, there are a few tech solutions that can help protect your shipments during this treacherous season.

Low-tech

Not all tech solutions need to involve sensors and screens. Some of the simplest technology has been protecting shipments from threatening winter conditions for centuries. You might alter your cold-season packaging processes to include some of the following tools and methods for keeping goods safe during winter transport:

Package Insulation

Leaving empty spaces in your packaging is a rookie shipping mistake. In addition to allowing your goods to shift and sustain shock and impact damage during transport, empty pockets of air are more susceptible to changing temperatures and thus likely to cause your goods to experience the freezing cold winter more acutely.

You can use packing insulation that is likely to retain heat, like natural fibers or synthetic foams, to keep your goods warmer during shipping. Here are some useful insulating packaging tools for food shipments: https://www.webstaurantstore.com/44429/insulated-shipping-boxes.html.

Cargo Blankets and Pallet Covers

Cargo blankets and pallet covers are another layer of insulation around your shipments. Cargo blankets tend to be flat and come in a variety of sizes and shapes, which means they can be wrapped around packages of varying dimensions; you can find an insulated cargo blanket here: https://qsales.com/cargoquilt/.

Meanwhile, pallet covers tend to be structured to fit snugly around goods stacked on a standard pallet. Both of these tools place another barrier between the freezing winter air and your shipped goods.

Shelters

Sometimes, freight will stop along the road for a period of time. Ensuring that containers are held under shelters, which will protect the packages inside from contact with snow, moisture, cold air and more, is a small but impactful way to prevent these small breaks in transportation from damaging shipped goods.

Packing Strategies

Usually, the carrier will take responsibility for packing the truck, but if you have any control over how your shipment is situated within the shipping container, you might try to locate your packages away from the walls, toward the center of the space. In time, the container walls will reach the same freezing-cold temperatures as the winter air, and freight that touches those walls will become colder faster.

Medium-tech

If you are working with goods that are somewhat sensitive to cold temperatures, you might invest in a medium-level of technology to keep your shipments safe during winter transport. Here are a few affordable and accessible tech solutions that any business can leverage to continue shipping through the winter season:

Temperature Indicators

Temperature indicators are usually labels that adhere to the outside of packaging and change colors to indicate that a package has reached a certain temperature threshold. You can find temperature indicators useful for winter weather here: https://spotsee.io/temperature/freezesafe. Indicators are helpful because they allow you or your recipient to understand the temperature conditions endured by the shipment, and if an unacceptable threshold is breached, rejection of the shipment can be fast and simple.

Weather Monitoring

Cold temperatures are not the only risks associated with winter shipping. You might consider closely monitoring weather conditions around shipment dates to ensure that your goods will not be traveling through regions that are likely to be unpassable due to heavy snow, ice, fog, or other concerns. If you do detect a potential disruption to your shipment route, you might reroute your carrier around winter dangers to keep your freight safe.

High-tech

Extremely sensitive materials and items need high-tech solutions to stay safe during transport in the winter season. Though high-tech protections will be more expensive than other solutions, they will provide the security your goods need during such a cold, dark time of year.

Temp-controlled Containers

Temperature-controlled containers use heaters and refrigerator units (reefers) to maintain a steady interior temperature for the entire duration of the trip. Though temperature-controlled containers are not entirely foolproof — as heaters and reefers require extensive maintenance to operate smoothly. Thus, if you are relying on temperature-controlled containers to keep your shipments safe this winter, you need to be confident that you are working with a reliable carrier.

The winter season shouldn’t prevent you from shipping your goods where you need them to go. With the right strategies, you can keep your shipments safe all winter long.