Shipping Containers Blog

Posts Tagged ‘industrial containers’

We mostly think of refrigerated containers as being purely commercial and of no interest to us cooking at home.   It is true, of course, that most of us will not have a 20ft or 40ft refrigerated shipping container sitting in our garden waiting for us to put our shopping in!   But in all likelihood many of the fresh ingredients that we buy have probably been in a refrigerated container before we ever get them home.

It isn’t fashionable now to admit that your ingredients have not all been sourced locally or been grown in your allotment or back garden.  Truth is most of the food we eat has travelled from various parts of the country or, indeed, various parts of the world.   Whether our lamb comes from our local farmer, or from Wales or New Zealand the truth is it has still probably been transported at some point in a refrigerated container.

These industrial containers  that we call refrigerated containers, work by keeping their contents at a different temperature than the surrounding environment.  Sometimes this involves the temperature being set at higher than that outside -which, if you think about it, means that calling them “refrigerated containers” could be inappropriate!    In fact the range that these so called refrigerated containers can be set at is between -20C and +20C.    This gives the opportunity to store a whole range of different products.   After all, different food stuffs will require different temperatures for storage.    Icecream, for example is going to need to be kept at a much lower temperature than lettuces!  Indeed the temperature controlled environment of the refrigerated shipping container means that everything can be kept fresh at the optimum temperature. 

So how is all this relevant to you at home and the stuff that you cook with everyday?   Shipping containers have bought the price of food down, and have made it possible for it to be transported from all over the world.   The majority of our food travels at some point by sea, road or train.   The standard size of a shipping container is 20ft or 40ft and it is these very sizes of  shipping containers, refrigerated or otherwise, which has brought down the price of transportation considerably.   The fact that standard shipping containers are either 20ft or 40ft  means that handling of all the containers could be done simply rather than using a variety of different machinery and lots of man power thus saving money.

So next time you are on the road travelling to the shops and pass a lorry taking food to the supermarket or to your local greengrocer you know exactly why that refrigerated container you have just overtaken has helped you with the meals you are planning to prepare.