WENDY KNOWLER | Stage 6 load-shedding has changed the cold chain maintenance game

Is your supermarket making sure its refrigerated and frozen foods don’t drop to dangerously low temperatures during load-shedding blackouts of more than four hours? Now is not the time to make assumptions. The lights on the fridge may be on, but that doesn’t mean the cold air is pumping.

I speak from personal experience.

A week ago, I visited my local Spar at noon, halfway through a four-hour stage 6 blackout.

I headed for the display fridge at the back of the recently renovated store, which houses the fresh meat. The lights were dimmer than usual so I touched the back of the fridge and realised it was not powered, and there were no “curtains” in front of the fridge to trap the cold air.

Concerned, I addressed this with the manager on duty, who confirmed the fridge in question was indeed “off” and said he’d have the meat removed. I think it’s fair to say that if there was a plan to keep that fresh meat at a safe temperature for more than four hours, he wouldn’t have waited two hours to implement it. One of South Africa’s most well known food safety and microbiology experts, Prof Lucia Anelich, said open fridges with fresh meat in them being off during long spells of load-shedding was “an absolute no-no” from a food safety perspective.

This week I asked four supermarket groups the same questions about cold chain maintenance during load-shedding, including: “With regard to refrigerated goods, after how many minutes does the company consider the cold chain to have been broken and the integrity of the goods compromised and what happens to such stock?” and “Have alternative power sources — for example generators and solar systems — been installed at all sites? Do they cover all freezers and fridges, or none, or just some?”

Here’s what they had to say:

Spar

“The extended power outages are certainly causing havoc with refrigeration and other appliances, as well as backup batteries and other alternative power sources. “However, it is imperative alternative solutions are found, which sadly may result in some wastage of products. “Excessive power cuts should never be an excuse for not ensuring the highest safety standards and protocols are maintained.”

As for my specific experience: “We are looking into this matter as a priority and will ensure we determine if there has been any failure on the part of the retailer to maintain our food safety standards, as per our comprehensive Spar store safe principles, which include twelve detailed modules Spar retailers are expected to adhere to across all aspects of food preparation, food hygiene, food storage, food serving and transportation of food, or the gazetted regulations governing good hygiene requirements for food premises.”

So not much information provided there.

Excessive power cuts should never be an excuse for not ensuring the highest safety standards and protocols are maintained.

As for how many minutes must pass with no refrigeration before foods are considered compromised, Spar said: “We do not stipulate minutes, but rather provide best practice measures and temperature regimes which our retailers are expected to adhere to. This includes a full breakdown of processes and guidelines for our retailers to ensure the maintenance of the core temperature of products.”

There was no response to my question about alternative power sources kicking in to power fridges and freezers during load-shedding.

The Shoprite Group:

“We have made substantial investments over the years to equip all our supermarkets with generators to enable uninterrupted operations, including keeping refrigerators and freezers running to protect perishable products during intermittent power cuts. This has become a standard specification for new stores. The group continues to invest and innovate to mitigate load-shedding. We increased the installed capacity of solar PV systems by 82% over the last year.”

Pick n Pay:

“Pick n Pay takes special care to protect the integrity of our cold chain during times of load-shedding. We have load-shedding guidance for all stores in place, and all fridges and freezers run off generators. All our fridges and freezers run off generators, and our stores take care to ensure they have sufficient diesel available. If the generators are out of commission and the cold chain is broken, stock is disposed of appropriately. Stores work as quickly as possible, because for every 10 minutes stock is out of cold chain, the temperature increases by 1°C. Stage 6 load-shedding puts additional pressure on our systems so production planning is critical. Our stores need to plan baking and cooking in line with load-shedding schedules as our ovens do not run off the generators. Hot food kept for longer than four hours is discarded.”

Woolworths:

“Most of our stores have standby generator power supplies, enabling them to continue to trade despite Eskom’s capacity and maintenance issues. The stores’ emergency backup generators keep equipment such as refrigeration units and tills up and running, and provide adequate lighting.

“If the generator fails, the store will attempt to save the stock by moving cold chain products into the walk-in cooler and frozen products into the walk-in freezers at the back of the store. Any cold chain products that go above -5°C and frozen products above -18°C would be isolated and will not be sold.”

Given that online grocery shopping has increased dramatically, and we’re now in the height of summer, I also asked them about their temperature management of perishables during the delivery process. Their responses were very enlightening.

Checkers Sixty60 does not make use of any cooling devices, all goods being transported are in brown paper bags but here’s how the company justifies that: “Each order is carefully selected by a picker who knows the store layout and is able to seamlessly navigate the store to prepare the order, followed by a dedicated direct delivery (via motorbike) which will typically reach a customer’s kitchen much sooner than the customer would have been able to move from our store to their home, especially during times of load-shedding which often causes further traffic delays.”

Pick n Pay said orders were kept at the correct temperature until the delivery was ready for dispatch, and “all online deliveries are delivered in insulated cooler boxes with ice packs to ensure stock is delivered at the correct temperatures”.

Woolworths said all perishable and frozen items were delivered according to their ideal temperature regime.

“For the scheduled delivery channel this is achieved with our own bespoke insulated box which is fitted with special frozen plates to maintain ideal product temperature.

“For Dash we use a flexible insulated and chilled delivery bag which maintains product temperature and quality on the short journey from the store to the customer.

“Our bags and boxes are regularly tested under field conditions to ensure that our standards are being met, and the people and process elements needed to maintain this temperature discipline are subject to regular process review and audits.”

Knowledge is power. Wherever you buy your perishables, it’s a really good idea to ask specific questions about their cold chain management during load-shedding.

Sadly, these scheduled blackouts will mostly get worse, not better.

• GET IN TOUCH: You can contact Wendy Knowler for advice with your consumer issues via e-mail: consumer@knowler.co.za or on Twitter: @wendyknowler.

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