Chilled and frozen shipping

[RandyMarsh]

I wonder whether anyone can give advice on shipping chilled and frozen food items by courier, please?

Background:
I have a bricks-and-mortar specialist food shop and also sell online but currently I only ship ambient items by post. I suspect I am getting quite a few visitors to my website wanting to order chilled/frozen items but leaving when they realise I can't ship to them. A much larger competitor has stopped trading recently so there is the potential for this side of the business to grow.

I have looked at specialist packaging suppliers but I just wondered if anyone here has experience and can make any recommendations?
For chilled items, is it as simple as freezing a gel pack and sticking it with the products in an insulated box and shipping it quickly?
For frozen items, I realise that will require dry ice and is probably too expensive to do small scale but I would be interested to hear if there is a way to make it affordable.
Orders are likely to include a mixture of ambient, chilled, and possibly frozen so is there a system that can accommodate this?
Are there couriers who are better for this sort of shipment?
Will customers baulk if I pass on all the extra costs of packaging and shipping to them?

I would only expect to fulfil around 50 orders of chilled and/or frozen goods a month initially so I don't want to spend a huge amount up front on equipment and supplies.

Many thanks for any advice you can offer.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Order from competitors and similar companies and see what they do!

 

[Socio South West]

I have been involved in shipping small scale chilled items for a while, and yes, wrap in a WoolCool blanket with a gel pack inside and overnight shipping is the way to go. (if you want about 70 of each, let me know.... )

To cut the time aspect as fine as possible delivery to a collection point as late as possible helps.... It wasnt a starter for me deep in the sticks between 3 counties, and a couple of chilled pizza samples weren't too pretty on arrival shall we say!

Obviously avoid shipping on Friday - and resist shipping on Thursday too..... and nail the customers to the door on their availability to take deliveries, or an alternative address. Most of mine were samples to health food Influencers - amazing how many of them take off on holiday on a whim!

I am currently looking at ice cream samples.... and just about the only way to go is dry ice in a polystyrene or other well insulated pack as far as I can ascertain.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

All the above that @Socio South West has mentioned is spot on
I recommend using DPD but it is an advantage to run a fridge van or truck direct from you to their hub in Birmingham to reduce "Fresh air time"
This is what some of the online companies are doing at the moment

 

[RandyMarsh]

Thanks very much for your comments. It looks like chilled isn't too difficult or costly to package. Gettting delivery timings right will be the main challenge.

I was looking at HydroPac Hydrofreeze gel packs which say they can keep food frozen for 48 hours but you need an ultra low temperature freezer to get them down to -35C or below. It looks like a freezer would cost around £700 and consume a lot of electricity.
On the other hand, I found a dry ice machine on Amazon for around £700. Dry ice is more fiddly and comes with a lot of H&S risks.
So, it looks like £1000 or so upfront costs and a fair bit added to each parcel's delivery cost.
Thank you again for your advice.