Export and logistics
The questions to ask a perishable logistics provider
Most perishable shippers compare quotes on rate and transit time, then discover the real differences after the first excursion, the first peak-season squeeze, or the first audit request from a retail customer. The providers listed in Fernable's directory vary enormously in what sits behind the quote: equipment age, monitoring discipline, how capacity is actually allocated, and what happens when something goes wrong. This guide is a working question set, organised by what each question protects, with what a weak answer sounds like so you can tell the difference before you sign.
Key facts
- A quote that only lists a temperature range is not evidence of control: ask for the alarm response procedure and how often probes are calibrated, not just the setpoint.
- Peak-season capacity is a promise until it is a contract. Ask whether your volume is committed by allocation or by best-effort, and what happens when both compete for the same reefer slot.
- Claims history predicts future loss better than a certification wall does. Ask for the last two years of temperature-excursion claims on the specific lane you are quoting, not company-wide averages.
- Weight the question groups differently by product and lane: a 48-hour domestic run for hardy produce tolerates more risk in financial stability than a 21-day reefer voyage for a high-value, short-shelf-life commodity.
Temperature control: equipment, monitoring, and alarm response
The setpoint on a quote tells you almost nothing. Ask what equipment actually holds that temperature: mechanical reefer units versus cryogenic or eutectic plate systems, single-temperature versus multi-compartment trailers, and the age and maintenance record of the specific fleet serving your lane, not the provider's newest showcase trucks. A weak answer names a temperature range and stops there. A strong answer names the equipment class, the recording interval of the data logger, and where in the load the sensor sits, because a sensor mounted at the return-air outlet reads several degrees warmer than product temperature in a dense pallet stack.
Ask how monitoring actually works in practice: is it a logger downloaded at delivery, or a live telemetry feed you can watch in transit? Ask what triggers an alarm, who receives it, and what the written response procedure is between the alarm firing and someone physically checking the unit. A provider who says an alarm goes to a 24-hour operations desk with a documented maximum response window is telling you something real. A provider who says the driver checks the gauge periodically is telling you the load is unmonitored for most of its transit hours.
Ask when sensors and reefer units were last calibrated, and against what standard. Calibration drift is invisible on a delivery report: a unit reading 2C when the product is actually at 5C produces a clean-looking log and an unsubstantiated claim later. For high-value or short-shelf-life product, ask whether independent calibration certificates are available on request, not just an internal maintenance log.
Network and lane coverage
A provider's national footprint is irrelevant if your specific origin-destination pair runs through a transload point they do not actually control. Ask whether your lane is run on owned assets, a dedicated partner carrier, or a spot-market broker relationship that changes week to week. Spot-brokered capacity means the provider cannot vouch for equipment condition or driver experience on any given move, because they did not choose the truck.
Ask specifically about the handoff points: how many times does the product change custody between pickup and final delivery, and is the cold chain unbroken at each one, or does the product sit on a dock waiting for the next leg. A three-leg move with two uncontrolled transfer windows carries materially more excursion risk than a single-carrier direct run, even if the total transit time is identical on paper.
For export lanes, ask whether the provider has actual operating history on the specific port or airport you are routing through, versus a generalist claim of global coverage. A forwarder who can name reefer plug availability at a destination terminal, or typical dwell time for perishable cargo through a particular cold facility, has real lane knowledge. One who answers only in generalities about their network is likely subcontracting that leg to whoever is available.
Capacity in peak season, and how it is committed
Every provider says they have capacity when you ask in the off-season. The real question is how your volume is treated when demand spikes, because reefer capacity does not expand elastically the way dry van capacity can. Ask directly whether your booked volume is a contracted allocation, meaning a specific number of reefer slots reserved for you regardless of what else is booked that week, or a best-effort commitment that gets bumped when a larger shipper's spot rate outbids yours.
As a worked example: a mid-size exporter moving 40 pallets a week on a best-effort arrangement found that in the six weeks around a major harvest peak, the provider's actual on-time pickup rate for their lane dropped from a normal 96 percent to 61 percent, because larger contracted shippers had first claim on the same trucks. The rate on the quote never changed. What changed was who got served first when capacity tightened.
Ask what the provider's peak-season triggers are and what allocation actually shifts when they hit: how many pickups were delayed in the last comparable peak, by how long on average, and whether alternate equipment was substituted or the shipment simply waited. A provider who can produce real numbers from a past peak is more credible than one who says peak planning is handled case by case.
Handling and cross-dock practice for temperature-sensitive freight
Ask what happens to product physically between the vehicle and the next vehicle, or between the vehicle and cold storage, at every cross-dock or consolidation point on the route. The two questions that matter most: is the dock itself temperature-controlled, or is product staged at ambient temperature on an open dock while awaiting the next leg, and what is the maximum time product sits at that stage.
A weak answer treats cross-docking as a logistics detail, describing it only in terms of speed. A strong answer describes it in terms of exposure: a controlled anteroom, a maximum dwell target measured in minutes rather than hours, and a documented procedure for what happens if a connecting vehicle is delayed and product would otherwise sit longer than that target. Ask specifically what happens on a missed connection, since that is where most real-world excursions occur, not during the sealed transit legs that get the most attention on a quote sheet.
For mixed loads, ask how the provider separates products with different temperature and humidity requirements within the same facility or vehicle, and whether staff handling perishable freight have documented cold chain training, not just general warehouse training. A facility that can name its first-expired-first-out rotation discipline is managing shelf life actively, not treating your product like any other SKU on the shelf.
Food safety certification and audit history
A certificate on a wall answers whether a provider passed an audit at some point, not whether they are currently operating to that standard. Ask for the certifying body by name, such as the British Retail Consortium, SQF, or an equivalent scheme recognised in your destination market, the scope of the certification (does it cover the specific facility and service you are using, or a different site under the same corporate umbrella), and the date of the most recent audit and its outcome, including any minor or major non-conformances raised and how they were closed out.
A weak answer is a scanned certificate with no discussion of findings. A strong answer includes the non-conformance history, because a provider with zero non-conformances across several years of audits is either genuinely excellent or is being audited too lightly to catch anything, and a provider who can discuss what a past finding was and what corrective action followed is demonstrating an active food safety culture rather than a compliance artifact.
Ask whether the certification covers the specific service you are buying. A provider may hold a strong certification for their cold storage facility but subcontract the actual line-haul transport to a carrier who holds no equivalent standard at all. The certificate on the website may be true and still not cover the leg of the journey where most of the risk sits.
IT and visibility, claims history, and financial stability
On visibility, ask whether temperature and location data update in real time or only at scheduled checkpoints, and whether that data is exportable in a format your quality team can use, rather than a login-only dashboard you have to screenshot. Ask how long temperature logs are retained after delivery and how quickly they can be produced on request: a provider who takes two weeks to produce a log after an incident will not help you resolve a dispute with your own customer in time.
On claims, ask for the actual number of temperature-excursion claims filed on your lane or product category over the last one to two years, the average time to resolve a claim, and the liability terms that actually apply. International moves are usually governed by a convention such as the Montreal Convention for air or the Hague-Visby Rules for sea, both of which cap liability well below the value of a full container of perishable goods. Ask explicitly whether the provider carries cargo insurance beyond that statutory minimum, and whether it covers you as the shipper or only the provider's own exposure.
On financial stability, ask how long the provider has operated on your specific lane, not just how long the company has existed, since a newly opened lane under an established brand carries different risk than a mature one. For a long lane or a high-value shipment, a basic public-record check such as a trade reference or a recent credit report is a reasonable ask before committing volume, particularly with a smaller regional provider you have not worked with before.
Weighting the answers, and a simple scoring approach
Not every question group deserves equal weight, and the right weighting depends on product and lane. For a hardy, longer-shelf-life product on a short domestic lane, temperature control and network coverage matter most, while claims history and financial stability matter less because the exposure window is short. For a high-value, short-shelf-life product on a long international lane, such as fresh seafood or soft fruit moving by air freight across time zones, weight temperature control, capacity commitment, and claims history most heavily, because a single missed connection can write off the entire shipment's value, and the liability caps discussed above will not come close to covering it.
A practical scoring approach for comparing three quotes: score each of the seven groups from 1 to 5 based on the strength of the answers you received, not the strength of the marketing material. Multiply each score by a weight reflecting how much that group matters for this specific shipment (weights should sum to 1 across the seven groups), then sum the weighted scores to get a single comparable number per provider. As a worked example, a fresh-produce exporter comparing three forwarders for a three-week reefer sea lane might weight temperature control and claims history at 0.25 each, capacity commitment at 0.2, network coverage and handling practice at 0.15 each, and certification and financial stability at 0.1 combined, then score all three providers against the same rubric using identical questions.
The value of scoring this way is not the final number, it is that it forces a like-for-like comparison instead of an impression formed from whichever sales conversation was most polished. Keep the raw answers alongside the scores. If a provider ends up underperforming after you have signed, that written record is what supports a claim or a renegotiation, and it is the same discipline a retail buyer will expect to see if they ever ask why you chose this provider in the first place.
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