How to ship pizza: what matters for frozen and fresh pizza
Pizza looks like an easy product to ship until someone asks which pizza. A frozen pizza and a fresh one need very different conditions on the way to the customer. Treating both the same way risks either goods that can no longer be sold or a base that is soggy when the box is opened.
The first question: frozen or fresh?
Everything that follows depends on it: the temperature that has to be held, the cooling elements, the packaging size and the transit time that is realistic. That is why this question deserves a clear answer before any packaging decision.
Frozen pizza: −18 °C with little room to spare
The EU has clear rules for quick-frozen foodstuffs. Under Directive 89/108/EEC, the temperature has to be kept stable at −18 °C or lower throughout the product. During transport, only brief upward fluctuations of no more than 3 °C are allowed.
For parcel shipping this means the packaging has to hold the cold over the entire transit time, even if the parcel takes a day longer than planned. What matters is the insulation, the type and number of cooling elements, and a shipping day that does not leave the parcel sitting in a depot over the weekend.
Fresh pizza: chilled and dry
For fresh pizza, the producer specifies the storage temperature, and that temperature has to hold all the way to the door. A second factor is often underestimated: moisture. Condensation inside the packaging can soften the base even when the temperature is right. How product and cooling elements are arranged matters as much as insulation performance.
What decides the right setup
Whichever variant you ship, four factors decide whether a pizza arrives the way it left:
Transit time: 24 or 48 hours make a big difference.
Outside temperature: a parcel in July needs a different setup than one in January.
Product weight and quantity: more product stores more cold but also needs more space.
Cooling elements: type, quantity and position in the box.
Estimating these factors quickly leads to one coolpack too many or one too few. Both cost money: one on every shipment, the other with every complaint.
Test instead of estimate
That is why we test the setup with our customers' products in our hall in Hartberg before the first delivery goes out. The decision on packaging size and cooling elements is then based on a result rather than an assumption.
And after unpacking?
That is part of shipping too. Our insulated packaging is made from more than 97% recycled paper and is fully recyclable in the standard paper bin without separation. End customers are not left with a disposal problem once the box is empty.
Want to ship pizza or other frozen and chilled products and looking for the right setup? Talk to us: https://www.supaso.eu/kontakt