Refrigerated Shipping Containers

In daily life today we need chilled or frozen products. Refrigerated shipping containers carry much of those through long distance.

You can see what I say when standing in a green grocery store or in a supermarket – division selling fruits or frozen fish and meat. A lot of stuff like fresh fruits, frozen meat, etc. are originally made in different part of the world moved to your place by reefer containers.

In shipping industry, ocean carriers like shipping lines and freight forwarders also love these reefers because the freight rates of those are so attractive in comparison to general cargo (non-freezing).

Reefer containers are special refrigerated containers. Their temperature can be adapted individually according to the goods in question. This allows temperature sensitive materials and products including vegetables, meat or fish, etc. to be shipped to warmer regions without any problems.

You may have seen reefer containers on such carriers as truck, train, or container ships. These transport means are equipped with refrigerating system to maintain the temperature inside container in desired level during shipping.

Identifying reefer container

The appearance and components of reefer containers are different from that of general purpose containers. We can easily identify a reefer box through visual features as follows:

• Aluminum white color sides
• Smooth and flat (not corrugated) walls
• Equipped with refrigerating machinery at back-end

PreTrip Inspection (PTI)

With shipping practitioners, dealing with refrigerated containers requires a lot more attention than general purpose (GP) containers. The concern from shippers can be relieved a lot as shipping companies strictly follow standard checks, called PreTrip Inspection (PTI), prior to releasing empty reefer boxes for stuffing.

In short, the PTI is a detailed inspection of reefer containers and should be meticulously carried out by experienced reefer experts. Procedures may varying from lines to lines, yet basically include common steps, see more about PTI here.

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