The
COVID
COLD CHAIN
HOW THE PANDEMIC HAS CHANGED THE FUTURE
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efore COVID-19, the cold chain wasn’t on most people’s radar, but shifting consumer demands, concern over food supply and specific healthcare needs during a pandemic put it in the spotlight. “It changed last spring when we started to see disruptions and challenges in the early days of the pandemic related to food,” said Lowell Randel, director of government affairs for IIAR and senior vice president of government and legal affairs for the Global Cold Chain Alliance. “The attention around the cold chain got even more intense with the vaccines coming online.” Michael Golek, a spokesman for GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft, said the pandemic has placed a greater focus on the environmental health and safety discipline in the refrigeration industry. “This is reflected in the strict precautions and procedures put in place to ensure that our industry can remain operational in order to supply our food industry customers with the equipment
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and services needed for them to continue to operate,” he said. MEETING THE COUNTRY’S NEEDS
Throughout the pandemic, Randel has been in regular communication with the government. “I was saying, ‘We’ve got a lot of capacity out there in the cold chain industry to provide temperature control logistics for whatever type of product needs to be stored,” he said, adding that most of the needs were for food. “If there are significant gaps where there is a need to fill distribution and storage for vaccines, there are a lot of companies out there that are ready and willing to help if needed and called upon.” FOCUSING ON PHARMACEUTICALS
Randel said the recent focus on pharmaceuticals could provide new opportunities for some in the natural refrigerant industry. “All of the attention due to the vaccine is giving people the motivation to evaluate if it makes sense to get
| CONDENSER | February 2021 | A Publication of the International Institute of Ammonia Refrigeration
involved with pharmaceuticals,” he said. “When you think about pharmaceuticals, you have security elements, liability considerations, insurance requirements and additional licensing. There are some complexities in dealing with pharmaceuticals.” Another consideration is that pharmaceuticals can’t be stored in the same area as food. “You would need to have plans in place for the segregation of product,” Randel said. “I think people are looking at what it would take to transition some of their operations to accommodate pharmaceuticals, but it is going to be a very individual assessment that companies will make to see how a transition to pharmaceuticals fits in their long-term plans.” Golek said, generally speaking, there is a trend in the cold chain away from the use of traditional cold stores and distribution centers that serve various companies. “The trend in some regions is toward processors developing their www.iiar.org
