A MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH OF COLD CHAIN TRANSPORTATION

Perishables requested by consumers all over the world are transported intensively and request no interruption of the cold chain. In this context, cold chain logistics, quality and safety of the products together with convenient comprehensive cost of cold chain transportation are under the attention of all actors involved in the process. Refrigeration is the technology with a key role in this activity. It is a technology with high energy consumption and rises environmental problems. In this paper cold chain transportation is approached multidisciplinary, so that this manuscript can be used as a guidance for different specialists. Are provided fundamentals of vapour compression refrigeration systems and formulae for costs affecting the total cost of this activity. It is taken into discussion multimodal transport, being considered costs reflecting on shore and on board transport of perishables.