Cold chain of chilled food in France

• Comparison between two temperature monitoring in France in 2002 and 2012.
• Product temperature and duration data from production plant to domestic storage.
• Most sensitive links: transport after purchase, storage in household refrigerator.
• Improved temperature in display cabinets in 2012, but not in refrigerators.

This paper presents the results of a cold chain field study in France in 2013 carried out in the framework of a European project named Frisbee. A comparison with the results obtained in a previous field study in France in 2002 was presented. These two studies enabled us to have a real picture of the cold chain because temperature monitoring was carried out in a manner not visible to operators and consumers. These studies concern the cold chain of chilled products from the production plant to storage in a domestic refrigerator.The Frisbee field study confirms the results observed in previous work that the most sensitive links are transportation after purchase and particularly storage in a household refrigerator. Despite the regulation imposed by the French authorities since 2002 to indicate the cold zone in refrigerators where sensitive products should be placed, the preservation of products at home is still problematic.