How To Ship Frozen Food: Carriers for Frozen Food Shipping

It’s easy to take your supermarket’s frozen food items for granted, and many shoppers peruse frozen items without a second thought about how they got there. 

But behind every refrigerated and frozen foods section lies a complex network of packing materials, refrigerated vehicles, and cold chain logistics. If you sell perishable food online—like direct-to-consumer dumpling brand MìLà, frozen meal company Veestro, and ice cream company Salt & Straw—finding reliable ways to transport your temperature-sensitive products is critical to maintaining quality. 

Here’s a guide to shipping frozen food, with tips for temperature control, cost efficiency, and delivery speed.

Challenges and risks of shipping frozen food

Shipping frozen foods safely presents a unique set of challenges: You need the right shipping container, a reliable shipping carrier, and strategies to manage costs. Jen Liao learned this when she turned her popular street food restaurant into MìLà, a direct-to-consumer (DTC) frozen dumpling ecommerce brand.

“When we shifted to DTC, we had soup dumplings,” Jen explains in an episode of Shopify Masters. “A lot of street food is not very conducive to DTC—freezing, packing, and sending it.” 

Dumplings, however, turned out to be a perfect ecommerce-friendly food.

Here are some key challenges to understand if you plan to ship cold food, particularly frozen food:

Maintaining the required temperature range

If frozen food thaws, it may become unsafe to consume. This leads to food waste and customer dissatisfaction, and in severe cases, illness, reputational damage, and legal issues. You must ensure your products remain at freezing temperatures throughout transit, even during long shipping times or delays.

Sourcing the proper packaging and cooling agents

To ship frozen goods effectively, you need insulation and cooling materials. Inadequate product packaging can lead to freezer burn, partial thawing, or spoilage. At the other extreme, overuse of expensive packaging and cooling agents can unnecessarily drive up shipping costs. 

Look for watertight wrapping for your products and insulated boxes. You can also use protective materials like bubble wrap if you’re shipping fragile frozen foods, like fancy frozen desserts. A plastic bag liner can further secure your package’s contents by ensuring they don’t get wet when your cooling agents begin to melt. 

Dry ice is typically the best option for keeping foods frozen, while frozen gel packs work well as supplements. Dry ice is considered hazardous, so you may need to limit its quantity to comply with carrier regulations. Dry ice turns to carbon dioxide gas as it warms, so make sure to pack it in a container that lets some air in and out. Using a completely airtight container can lead to an explosion. Make sure to handle dry ice in a ventilated area, as carbon dioxide is toxic at high concentrations.

Delivering on customer expectations

Your brand is only as good as the products it delivers. To ensure customer satisfaction, you must prevent freezer burn, which occurs when your frozen products dry out due to inadequate packaging or storage conditions. Avoid this by maintaining consistent temperatures, minimizing freezing time before delivery, and using airtight packaging for your products. 

Jen was aware of quality expectations from the start. 

“It has to hit this quality threshold,” Jen says. “We really held firm: Our parents have to say it is the best frozen soup dumpling they’ve had. Our grandparents have to say that. And it does have to have broad appeal.”

Complying with regulations

Frozen food shipments must meet health and safety regulations, including labeling and temperature documentation, which show the temperature logs for frozen food during shipping and storage. You must also meet your carrier’s regulations around dry ice, including labeling the material and staying within quantity limits. Non-compliance can result in fines, shipment rejections, and legal challenges, all of which can dent your business’s bottom line and reputation.

Keeping costs manageable

If you’re looking for a way to ship frozen food cheaply yet safely, you may be disappointed. Temperature-controlled packaging materials like insulated foam containers and frozen gel packs cost more than standard boxes and packing peanuts. To keep your food frozen during transit, you also need to pay for premium shipping with carriers like USPS, FedEx, or an express courier service. 

Reining in costs can be tricky if you don’t have your own frozen food shipping infrastructure, like a fleet of temperature-controlled trucks and warehouses, or a partnership with a company that does.

“We were doing frozen direct consumer products, and a lot of that infrastructure just wasn’t built out at that time, and it’s still pretty nascent right now,” Jen recalls. “There’s a lot of frozen infrastructure for grocery stores and enterprise product movement, but not really for direct to consumer.” 

How to ship frozen food

1. Make sure your package is watertight
2. Select the appropriate packaging materials
3. Use cooling agents as needed
4. Select a reliable delivery service
5. Protect against risks with insurance and tracking

Shipping frozen food requires advance planning and special packing material. Here’s how to manage the process:

1. Make sure your package is watertight

Watertight and airtight plastic around your products ensures cleanliness, protects against potential contamination or package damage, and helps prevent freezer burn. The longer your shipping time, the more likely your goods are to experience at least some thawing along the way, so err on the side of caution.

Tip: Vacuum-seal each food parcel and place them in watertight plastic bags to prevent leaks from melting cooling agents or condensation. Remember not to make your entire shipping container airtight, as you’ll need ventilation for dry ice.

2. Select the appropriate packaging materials

Choosing proper containers helps maintain an appropriate temperature and protect cold foods during transit. Use insulated packaging, insulated box liners, and bubble wrap to minimize temperature fluctuations and prevent damage.

Tip: Wrap your watertight and airtight product in bubble wrap, then place your product in an insulated foam container. Place the insulated container inside a sturdy corrugated cardboard box. Not only does this help preserve cold temperatures, it also provides maximum protection.

3. Use cooling agents as needed

For goods that don’t require freezing temperatures, ice packs can suffice. However, the best way to ship frozen foods that require extremely cold temperatures is dry ice shipping. You might even combine gel packs and dry ice. 

Tip: Before using cooling agents, make sure your package complies with carrier regulations. Standard ice packs don’t require special handling, but chemical cold packs and dry ice may.

4. Select a reliable delivery service

Fast delivery minimizes exposure to temperature fluctuations and ensures cooling agents function properly throughout transit, preserving perishable items. UPS, FedEx, and USPS all provide guidelines for shipping frozen food via their normal delivery services. 

Tip: You may be better off working with express courier services that specialize in shipping perishables like frozen meats or clinical and pharmaceutical goods. 

5. Protect against risks with insurance and tracking

Insurance covers losses from extreme delays, while carrier tracking services let you and your customers act quickly if issues arise.

Tip: Consider purchasing shipping insurance to cover losses during transit mishaps. Track your perishable goods so you can respond quickly if something goes awry.

Carriers for shipping frozen food

For some consumers, frozen beats fresh. That’s the case with Veestro, a plant-based meal service that ships frozen dishes directly to customers. 

“We found that by providing our meals frozen, it allows you to not feel that pressure so you can come home and say, ‘Oh, I don’t really feel like cooking today. Oh, I have great Veestro meals in the freezer,’” says Veesto cofounder Monica Klauser on Shopify Masters. 

Yet Veestro can only deliver on this proposition if its frozen meals arrive on time—and fully frozen. Major shipping vendors like USPS, FedEx, and UPS allow you to ship your frozen food quickly and securely. Here’s an overview of each carrier:

USPS

The United States Postal Service (USPS), the most popular shipping service in the country, offers Priority Mail and Priority Mail Express as the best options for shipping frozen items, due to their speed and reliability. 

However, USPS does not provide refrigeration or cooling services, so you must supply your own cooling materials, like dry ice or gel packs. Consult the USPS website for shipping regulations regarding these cooling agents, as some are only permitted for domestic shipments.

FedEx

FedEx offers temperature-controlled shipping containers and dedicated services for shipping frozen goods, like rerouting to cold chain centers during shipping delays and inclement weather. With insulated containers and cooling agents, you can also ship refrigerated items and frozen foods through FedEx’s regular shipping options.

You must mark dry ice with specific labeling to indicate the quantity (no more than 5.5 pounds per package for air shipments). Consult FedEx’s website for more specifications.

UPS

UPS offers robust tracking capabilities, and its Next Day Air or 2nd Day Air are speedy options for shipping frozen food. However, it does not offer specialized cooling services for food shipments.

Clearly label your shipments as “Perishable” and declare any dry ice to ensure compliance with UPS’s regulations. Consult the UPS website for more details about shipping frozen food.