Holiday-Ready Cold Chain: Framework for Perishables in Food & Beverage & Retail
Holiday demand punishes fragile processes. Promotions compress lead times, labor peaks collide with dock schedules, and one temperature slip can turn profitable inventory into shrink.
A countdown calendar does not fix that. What does work is a reusable framework that turns peak season into a series of disciplined routines. At AJC Freight Solutions, “Service in every shipment.” means building a system you can run, measure, and continuously improve.
Pillar One: Capacity design, not capacity luck
Begin with a lane map that assigns each SKU family a mode, cadence, and backup. The point is not more trucks, it is a rhythm that the warehouse and transportation teams can count on.
Assign steady movers to reefer full truckload on fixed pickup and delivery windows.
Use refrigerated LTL and partial truckload for shorter promotion windows and mid-week fills.
Pre-reserve capacity with primary and backup carriers so last-minute demand does not push you into poor choices.
For export flows, book container drayage and port appointments well before the promotion calendar locks.
Outcome: fewer emergency expedites, predictable labor planning, and a stable cost per case.
Pillar Two: Product protection standards
Write down the non-negotiables that keep product in spec and make them easy to follow. Standards should be simple, visual, and posted at the dock.
Trailer hygiene, dry-out, and pre-cool confirmed before a door opens.
Pulp-temperature acceptance at the dock, with stop-load criteria that trigger re-work before doors close.
Airflow rules that any loader can apply without guessing.
Door-open targets and sequencing by shelf life to prevent warm time.
Outcome: a safer baseline that does not depend on heroics or the luck of a particular shift.
Pillar Three: Fewer touches, faster miles
Every unnecessary handoff creates dwell, damage risk, and heat gain. Engineer routes to do less, better.
Consolidate at regional hubs and zone-skip to destination regions to remove intermediate terminals.
Bypass the DC for short-dated items during narrow promotion windows; use LTL store-direct where time to shelf is the objective.
Keep base load flowing into DCs on full truckload, and use partial truckload or LTL to smooth spikes without over-stocking.
Outcome: fewer touches, shorter transit, and fewer claims.
Pillar Four: See risk early, act earlier
Visibility is useful only if it changes decisions quickly. Put transportation, warehouse, merchandising, and store ops on one set of facts.
A single view of ETA, temperature, and door events across truckload, LTL, drayage, and intermodal legs.
Alerts that are specific and routed to the person who can act.
Pre-defined responses for late vessels, yard congestion, or temperature drift so minutes do not turn into days.
Outcome: small issues stay small and resets hold their windows.
Pillar Five: Measure, learn, lock it in
Treat peak like a repeatable experiment. Measure what matters, publish the score, and promote the practices that worked.
Track on-time in-full by lane and facility, excursion minutes per thousand miles, spoilage and claims, detention and door-open minutes, and exception resolution time.
Run quarterly scorecards that rank carriers, lanes, and facilities.
Move winning packouts, airflow diagrams, and drop-trailer cadences into the standards library for next season.
Outcome: each peak gets easier, cheaper, and more predictable.
Share your peak calendar and lanes. We will map a pillar-by-pillar plan you can reuse every season. AJC Freight Solutions. Service in Every Shipment. Request a quote today!
