The globalized agricultural and food processing industry offers U.S. consumers year-round access to a wide variety of food products grown in diverse climates and growing conditions. But, transporting those temperature-sensitive products—from fruits and vegetables to meats, seafood and frozen foods—through drastically varying climates and environments presents a huge challenge to the world’s food chain both in terms of engineering and regulatory compliance.
The transportation equipment and HVACR systems responsible for maintaining precise interior conditions during transit play a critical role in ensuring that food arrives in the same condition and with the same level of quality as when it left the field, factory or warehouse. And yet as important as these systems are, they are in a state of constant change. These systems carry products across international borders, causing manufacturers to respond to a variety of complex regulations, including foreign policies such as the European Union’s Fluorinated Gas (F-gas) legislation, a key driver for the industry-wide transition to low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants. The U.S. EPA’s Tier 4 regulations governing diesel engine emissions represents another example of regulations impacting the U.S. transportation sector.