Keep It Cool attend Cold Chain go Live event
Cold Chain go Live
In October, I attended Cold Chain Live at Telford. The two-day conference brought together operators, cold store owners, suppliers and policy voices under one roof for the premier event in the temperature-controlled supply chain calendar.
Sharing Insights
This year, we’ve taken an active step forward in talking about the issues facing us and our industry from the micro to macro level. It was therefore great to see many of the topics be central to the events.
The CCF’s chief executive, Phil Pluck, providing a progress report on The Critical Link white paper, followed by a panel on the future of food resilience.
I wrote about our takeaways from the paper in an article in October, explaining how the extensive document warns that growing pressures on the UK’s cold chain are increasing risks to food security, public health and economic resilience.
The event also featured a lively panel discussion on the implications of rising energy costs for cold store operators, alongside a session on the CCF’s Transport Refrigeration Unit census. Both sit close to the fuel and energy pressures I’ve covered in Why the UK Needs an Essential User Fuel Rebate and in Net Zero and the Road We’re Not Ready For.
The panel discussions and those exchanged with peers in the room highlighted the long road we still have ahead in bringing some consistency and stability to the market. That does not detract from the importance of getting the balance right quickly. We should be preventing the next crisis proactively, rather than waiting for it to hit and reacting in the moment.
Conversations and Coffee
It’s in the conversations during coffee breaks that these events bring the most value. Events like these are an essential link between day-to-day reality, political insight and infrastructure growth. It’s an intersection of decision makers who provide key insights into where our industry is heading next, what challenges we’re likely to face and how growth will ride on the back of those waves.
The first thing I took away is how essential the work the CCF does on our behalf really is. It brings rigour and co-ordination to the issues and challenges facing our industry, creating an environment where the government and other professional bodies are forced to take note of what is important to the cold chain. The recent white paper is a
good example of this. The depth of research and data behind the final presentation to members of Westminster pushed the government to take note of just how important our industry is.
During the sessions, I was struck by just how close to chaos the cold chain is at any one point in time. It matches what I see every day at Keep It Cool, and it is a reminder that we must be prepared and ready to tackle future challenges as effectively as possible. When COVID hit, it disrupted the entire industry and ecosystem, and yet if such an event were ever repeated, it doesn’t feel as though we’ve learned the lessons needed to plan ahead for these possibilities.
What gave me the most confidence, though, was the people in the room. We are doers, and we do it together. Operators, suppliers and the CCF all turned up, shared openly and left with the same view: despite the challenges, we will always surge forward together.
About Keep It Cool
Keep It Cool is a specialist refrigerated transport business serving B2B food businesses across the UK. Operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the business provides dedicated same-day temperature-controlled transport with no consolidated loads, no contracts and no compromises.
Founded in 2014 by Managing Director Nikki Redhead, Keep It Cool has grown from a standing start to a £3 million operation, built on reliability, responsiveness and a team that takes responsibility when it matters most.