A new Cool Chain Quality Indicator (CCQI) developed by the Cool Chain Association and Germanischer Lloyd (GL) and which has received strong support from the logistics industry, has been described as the first auditable standard to access installations, methods and staff competence in relation to their capacity for maintaining the freshness and condition of perishables and preventing their spoilage.

More than 65 representatives of the 35 worldwide leaders in perishable logistics welcomed the new CCQI standards at its first public presentation in Billund in May.
GL remarked in its official publication: “For companies in this industry, the CCQI is of great value in two respects. On the one hand, certified firms can demonstrate their own professionalism and competence outwards - eg towards clients - and hence establish themselves over the long term as a “premium carrier” amongst the competitors.
“On the other hand, the standard is a useful tool within the scope of a continuous internal improvement process.”
Certification is granted to companies that attain a superior level of professionalism and meet certain requirements. The focus is on maintaining the specified temperature during transportation, whilst other assessment aspects involve the hygiene and the intercompatibility of the various chilled products.
“We see good market opportunities for the new service. There certainly is a demand and at present there is no comparable offer,” explains Bernhard Stander of Germanischer Lloyd Certification, the certification body for the new standard.
For assessing a transport service, the cool chain is subdivided into individual sequences (“operations”) to permit a comparison of the various companies. Currently the standard includes truck and trailer transport; aircraft transport; apron handling at airports and  long-term storage and short-term storage/distribution centres.
The quality criteria for further operations, especially ocean transport and seaport and terminal handling, are being prepared.
The Cool Chain Association’s quality requirements primarily examine the two areas “organisation” and “hardware.”  Organisation includes, for example, the obligation for a quality philosophy, the explicit statement of a required temperature range, the definition of incoming goods checks and targeted training measures.
Hardware aspects include the availability and the condition of refrigerating units, temperature measurement devices and measures for heat insulation. All operations are audited in the two categories “Conformance Check,” in which the fulfillment of requirements is examined, and  “Benchmarking”, in which the existing facilities and measures are assessed by means of the Cool Chain Quality Indicator.
To gain certification, all requirements must be met and the quality indicator must at least match a reference value - the benchmark. The points for the CCQI are awarded on the basis of reference tables developed from a risk-based approach. They specify the number of points to be issued for a certain measure.
The maximum number of points that can be reached for all operations is 100. The CCQI points attained for each operation are recorded in the certificate.
Most of the companies represented at the Danish meeting, including firms such as Emirates Airlines, KLM and Hellman Perishable Logistics, are planning the implementation and certification of the new standard in their own organisations and supply chains,” GL said.