Labels for cold chain monitoring
When we take a deep frozen product from a freezer display cabinet, we do not know if it has been stored as established by the Italian Legislative Decree No. 110/92 implementing Directive 89/105/ EEC on frozen food for human consumption.
The decree stipulates that:
The temperature of frozen foods shall be maintained in all parts of the product at a value equal to or below -18°C.
During transport, brief upward fluctuations of no more than 3°C (-15°C) are tolerated.
During local distribution, in freezer display cabinets for sale to the consumer, brief upward fluctuations of no more than 3 °C are allowed in the temperature of the product.
Today, at the time of purchase, we do not know if the frozen product
has reached, for longer or shorter periods, temperatures above = ° C.
In order to prevent products which have not maintained the minimum food guarantees from being sold, we offer Deep Freeze which allows us to identify whether or not the product has been defrosted.
How Deep Freeze works
At the time of deep-freezing or freezing, an adhesive label, LABEL A, is placed on the product packaging. This label comes in various sizes, and logos and phrases can be printed on it.
Immediately afterwards, a second adhesive label, LABEL B, is place on the first. This transparent label contains a dye reagent which is evident when the temperature reaches 0 °C with a difference of around 2%.
The fuchsia colour of LABEL B shows that it has defrosted.
The defrosted product should be withdrawn from sale. We want to inform the producer, the store manager and the consumer that the product has defrosted and that dangers may arise from this. Product labelling can be done with ordinary machines on the market that have undergone specific adaptations. The costs are contained in relation to the effectiveness of the result.