Indiana police pulled over a tractor trailer for a speeding violation on Thursday, but what they didn’t know is that they would uncover something that could save thousands of consumers some serious health affects.
Raw chicken was among the products contaminated due to improper temperature conditions.
Chun Zhang was traveling on U.S. 41 when he was pulled over for driving above the speed limit. As police were issuing him a warning, they noticed that the truck’s refrigerated unit was not working.
Upon further investigation, police discovered that the trailer was operating at a temperature of 69.5 degrees, causing the load of meat the driver was delivering to Indianapolis, Columbus, and Bloomington areas to reach unsafe temperatures.
The loads of raw chicken, which were measured at 48 degrees, and beef, which ranged from 48 to 50 degrees, were to be delivered to restaurants and stores, but their unsafe temperatures had deemed them dangerous, thawing them out and dripping their juices and blood onto the trailer floor (http://www.wlfi.com/dpp/news/crime/troopers-stop–truck-from-delivering-spoiled-foods).
Now what if the trailer was not properly cleaned and your food load was put in there next? Many times that is the case. But do you have any way of knowing? With Road Scholar Transport you do.
Road Scholar diligently keeps a full audit trail of what was previously inside a trailer and routinely washes and cleans the equipment, keeping it food grade.
Zhang admitted that he forgot to turn the reefer unit on and quickly proceeded to do so, but it was too late, wlfi.com notes. The food had already been deemed contaminated/spoiled and authorities ordered nearly 2,200 lbs. of the products to be destroyed with the company only being allowed to keep the canned, paper, and plastic products.
2,200 lbs may not seem like a lot of products, but consider this, “the average food cargo loss for a single load exceeds $120,000. If the load falls into the wrong hands and back into the consumer supply chain, the cost to the brand could be in the billions,” according to Freight Watch International.
And although your shipment may arrive with a proper temperature setting, you have no way of knowing if the driver turned on the unit close to delivery in order to refreeze the food products, like the driver in this case tried to do. Road Scholar Transport, on the other hand, can present our customer with a time log displaying the temperature of our reefers at any precise moment, so you can be assured that your products maintained a proper temperature throughout transport.
As the article in wlfi.com notes, the driver made off with a warning for speeding and was cited for an insecure and leaky load.
What do you think of drivers turning off refrigerated units during transport and turning them on right before delivery in order to cut down on costs? List your comments below!
Indianapolis, IN and operates only one truck and driver. But then again, they recently went into business on March 3, 2011 so their small operation is still growing right? Not anymore.
