Temperature-controlled freight: what to publish for a buyer who audits

Who reads a cold-chain page, and what they compare it with

The reader who matters is the one who will audit you: a quality manager, or a procurement team with a quality manager behind it. Before any visit, they may ask an AI assistant "which carriers hold 2 to 8 °C from Toronto to Montreal with a logger in every load" or "cold storage near Jebel Ali that sends temperature records with every order", and then read the pages the answer cites. An answer can repeat "holds [range] °C on every load, with a logger per pallet" about you only where a sentence of yours says it.

What that reader compares your page with is their own list of requirements, and behind it the rules for their product. Which rules apply to medicines, food or clinical samples depends on the product and the jurisdiction, and differs between the US, Canada, the EU and the UAE. This page names none of them. It covers what a provider states about its own practice, which is what an auditor tests against the rules; whether the practice meets them is for the buyer, the regulator and your counsel.

Temperature ranges, stated as your own specification

State each range as a specification you run, not as a capability you could offer: the range per service, the equipment that holds it, where it applies and where it does not, and the date you last reviewed it. A range that holds on two lanes and not the third is two statements, and the page should make both.

Monitoring and records: what the client receives

An auditor asks how you know the range held, and a public page can answer that without showing anyone's shipment. Describe the practice; keep the records themselves behind the client login, where each client reads its own. The article on public pages and the client portal covers what crawlers can reach on each side of that line.

• What is measured: air or product temperature, per load, per pallet or per zone.
• How often: a reading every [n] minutes, and the device that takes it.
• How the devices are checked: calibrated every [period] on your own schedule, with the date of the last check.
• Where readings go: the system that records them, and how long you keep them, as your own policy ([n] years).
• What the client receives: a report per shipment within [n] hours of delivery, a live view in the portal, an alert at [threshold], in [format].

A sample report with the client data removed shows the format better than any description of it. Publish it as a page, or as an image with the same content written beside it: in our audit of 9,483 small business websites, 2.1% kept real content, such as a price list or a service menu, in a PDF (across all 40 trades; we publish no logistics-only cut), and a sample report or a certificate kept only as a file would sit in the same place.

Certificates and audits, in the issuer's words

List only what you hold. For each certificate, license or registration, give its name exactly as the certifying body or regulator words it, with no shortening and no broadening; the body that issued it; the number; the scope (the sites, services and temperature ranges it covers); the dates it was issued, expires and was last audited; and a link to the issuer's public lookup where there is one. If clients audit you, you can state those audits in counts and dates, without names, where your agreements allow it.

The structured data follows the same line. schema.org's Certification type, reached through hasCertification, carries issuedBy, certificationIdentification (the number a reader can use to verify it), certificationStatus, validIn, validFrom, expires and auditDate. Put it on the node the certificate covers: the company's Organization, one site's LocalBusiness, or the Service it applies to. Write it as JSON-LD that repeats the certifications page, and change both on the day a certificate is renewed or lapses.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Service",
  "name": "[Chilled transport, as the page names it]",
  "serviceType": "[service]",
  "provider": { "@id": "https://www.example.com/#organization" },
  "areaServed": "[region or lane]",
  "hasCertification": {
    "@type": "Certification",
    "name": "[Name exactly as the issuing body words it]",
    "issuedBy": { "@type": "Organization", "name": "[Issuing body]" },
    "certificationIdentification": "[certificate number]",
    "certificationStatus": "https://schema.org/CertificationActive",
    "validIn": { "@type": "AdministrativeArea", "name": "[jurisdiction]" },
    "validFrom": "[YYYY-MM-DD]",
    "expires": "[YYYY-MM-DD]",
    "auditDate": "[YYYY-MM-DD]",
    "url": "[the issuer's public lookup, if it has one]"
  }
}

Lanes and capacity for temperature-controlled work

The buyer's second question is whether you can do it on their lane, at their volume. State the lanes you run chilled or frozen by name, with departures per week, transit time as your own dated figure, and how a border crossing or a transfer is handled as your own practice. State capacity per temperature zone: [n] pallet positions at [range] °C at [site], counted [month year], and the number of refrigerated units in your fleet.

Every one of those numbers needs a period, a definition and a date, or it is a claim; the article on operating figures sets out how to publish them. A lane you run often enough to be known for deserves a page of its own, as the article on specialist pages describes.

Your excursion procedure, stated as your own process

An auditor will ask what happens when a reading leaves the range, so write down what you do, in order, with your own times in brackets. Stated this way, the procedure tells an auditor exactly what to test you against, and it makes no claim about what any rule requires.

1. Detection: what counts as an excursion (outside [range] °C for more than [n] minutes), what raises the alarm, and who receives it at any hour.
2. First response: what the team does within [n] minutes, such as checking the unit and moving the goods to [backup equipment], and how each action is recorded.
3. Holding the goods: how affected goods are separated and labeled, and who decides what happens to them under your agreement with the client.
4. Notice to the client: within [n] hours, with the readings, the duration and the actions taken.
5. The written report: what it contains and when it is sent.
6. The review: the cause found, the change made, and where both are recorded.

What a cold-chain page should not say

• That you comply with a standard or a rule, unless a certificate you hold says so in the issuer's words; or a rule restated as your promise.
• A range you hold on some lanes as though it held on all of them.
• A certificate that has lapsed, or one that covers a different site.
• A logo with no name, number or dates beside it.
• A client's name, a product name or a real temperature record, without written permission.

The rest of what a logistics site states, from services to identity, is in the overview for logistics providers.