Using A Low-Quality Foam Shipping Cooler Can Ruin Your Overnight Seafood Shipment!
There are times when a good seafood catch or purchases needs to be packaged and shipped out of town to friends or family enjoy. For the general fishing public, seafood store consumers, and small businesses related to area fishing industries, using the best shipping practices helps ensure the desired outcome, which is this:
SEAFOOD CARGO STILL FRESH UPON ARRIVAL AT ITS DESTINATION!
Life on the coast often means access to doing your own fishing, shrimping, and crabbing, or if you’re not the do-it-yourself type, at least you have the ability to get the best, freshest seafood at local area seafood markets, just caught, ready to be cooked. Still, for others, life along the shores means getting into the seafood business itself.
In each of these scenarios, shipping that seafood catch or purchase requires the most cost-effective, value-added, reliable means to get the job done, and for most people, that involves overnight shipping of seafood cargoes using thermally protective, reliable EPS Foam Shipping coolers placed snuggly inside of sturdy cardboard boxes. Of all the supplies involved in the seafood shipping process – thick plastic bags, absorbent materials, gel packs, etc. – the most important item is the foam shipping cooler, because if its quality is lacking then everything else you do to maintain acceptable temperature ranges during transit can be a waste of time in money.
Characteristics Of Foam Shipping Coolers That Indicate Higher Quality…
Three things to look for when choosing a “foam shipper” that helps seafood packages arrive fresh are thickness, durability, and leak resistance.
You want your cooler to be at least one inch thick and of a strong, sturdy feel (not easily flexible to where it can break). When the thickness and strength are good, then the last thing to consider is leak resistance, and this is because of the nature of the cargo being shipped – wet seafood (sometimes with sharp, pointy parts) and ice-cold refrigerants that accumulate frost which melts and drips. The foam shipping cooler must be manufactured in a way that completely fuses the individual eps foam beads so that the bonds they form are able to prevent liquid from flowing through minute gaps while at the same time maintaining temperature integrity.
The leak-resistant characteristics of any brand or configuration can be easily tested by filling it at least 3/4 full with fresh water and timing how much time passes until the surface either begins accumulating condensation (sweating – it’s not actually condensation, but water seeping through the foam material) or until water starts beading and dripping down the sides.
Fact is, foam coolers are not supposed to sweat or drip or leak – not if the manufacturer claims to produce quality. So, if within a few minutes to a few hours you notice these things occurring, it means you’ve either got a cheap brand or somebody rolled a bad one off the line for sale to the consumer. If the container stays dry (especially if you test it overnight), then you have a quality foam shipper.
Importance of Leak Resistance in Foam Shippers
Logically, if the foam shipping container can’t properly hold liquid then it has no chance of maintaining temperature integrity. We’ve just launched an online article about the added value of using only the highest quality foam shipping coolers for use in shipping seafood overnight. Check out the article entitled “Shipping Seafood Overnight – Why Leak-Resistant Shipping Coolers Give You More Bang For Your Buck”.
"The Bear Facts"
In 1967, the founder of our company had endured enough frustration from having cheap ‘styrofoam’ coolers break or leak when he went out fishing off the coast of Destin, Florida. In those days, many fishermen would load their catches into such coolers to take back to the dock, with a high likelihood of suffering a ‘foam cooler disaster’ because they simply were not well made enough to handle that kind of a pounding.
