Incubator Advice: How To Ship Perishable Food Easily?

Danielle Buell of My Sweet Nostalgia is from the Long Island Incubator Group asks:
I have a cookies/cakes business that is frozen items shipped. I am having issue with the shipping ice packs and was wondering if there were other LWL members out there with experience in shipping perishables. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

Comments

[Niche]

The first that cam to my mind is that there's a company that ships Cincinnati-favorites like Graeter's Ice Cream and Skyline Chili to people all over the country. If you can find out how they do it, then than can help.

Second, there's a Yahoo group for cake, cupcake business owners you may want to join. http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/cupcakeco-op/

Third, may Jill from Fretzels.com (New York Incubator Member) may have some insight even though her business is pretzels.

[Sharon]

Hi. I have just spent the last year and a half learning about shipping temperature sensitive food products (for a separate project other than OurHopePlace.com) - while I am no where near an expert I would be happy to discuss with you if you would like. Maybe I can help.

You can reach me at [email protected]

[Johanna]

I'd like to ship frozen crabcakes from Maryland to New York City. I have 3 questions: #1 Can I do that; #2 Is dry ice enough to keep the crabcakes frozen, and #3 Should overnight the package.

Thank you

[Sharon]

regarding shipping... I am sorry to say that I worked with temperature sensitive items vs frozen - I suspect there are greater challenges in what you are doing. However I can tell you our QA team was very hesitant to use dry ice: for health reasons. And the shipping/supply team was also hesitant as dry ice is very large and heavy. Maybe this helps - even just a little.