GC-IMS Reveals Best Pre-Cooling for Beef Delivery

Researchers at Yanbian University (Yanji, China) examined how cold beef can be chilled before packing it, and how that affects its quality and temperature swings during shipping. The team tested this by simulating a real-world delivery: 48 hours sitting at a warm 25 °C (like a truck or outdoor conditions), followed by proper chilled storage at 4 °C. They chilled beef steaks to three different starting temperatures: -0.5 °C (just barely below freezing, staying unfrozen), -5 °C (lightly frozen), and -18 °C (fully frozen solid). They compared all three against a normal fridge-temperature control at 4 °C. Among the factors considered to judge quality were how fresh the meat smelled and stayed (using chemical freshness markers), how much fat had broken down, bacteria levels, how much juice/water the meat held onto, its taste and aroma (using electronic tongue, electronic nose, and gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry [GC-IMS]), and what its internal structure looked like under close examination. A paper based on this work was published in the journal Food Chemistry: X.¹

Why Is It Important to Study How to Control Temperature During Fresh Beef E-Commerce Delivery?

As large online shopping platforms have taken off in recent years, a whole new way of buying fresh food has taken off along with them. Because it's so easy and convenient to order fresh produce online now, the fresh food e-commerce industry has been growing fast.² In China, key farming regions like Inner Mongolia ship out huge amounts of beef and lamb every year, showing just how massive fresh meat logistics has become. Beef is one of the most important fresh foods people buy, packed with nutrients like protein and amino acids. But that same rich composition makes it spoil easily (because enzymes, oxidation, and bacteria can all cause it to go bad quickly), so it needs to be handled and stored very carefully.³To handle small individual online orders while keeping shipping costs down, sellers commonly use a simple setup: the expanded polystyrene (EPS) box distribution model packed with ice packs, a method is widely used for deliveries that typically take 24 to 48 hours.⁴ “This approach,” write the authors of the paper, “has intrinsic flaws: it's difficult to maintain stable temperatures inside EPS boxes, and ice packs melt easily. Therefore, managing the distribution environment in e-commerce and limiting temperature shifts have become essential challenges to maintaining the quality of fresh beef.”

Which Is the Best Pre-Cooling Strategy for Beef Shipped in EPS Boxes, and Why?

The researchers found that how cold the food was chilled before packing it in an EPS container had a big effect on how well it stayed fresh during shipping. Freezing it hard at -18 °C caused the biggest temperature swing (about 16 °C) once packed and showed the clearest signs of damage from freezing and thawing. Chilling it to just below freezing, -5 °C, led to visible damage inside the food's structure and more liquid loss (drip). Cooling it to just barely below zero, -0.5 °C (a "supercooled" state where it stays liquid despite the low temperature_ caused the smallest temperature swing (about 4 °C), kept the food's internal structure in better shape, and helped it stay fresher, tastier, and juicier. After 48 hours of simulated shipping, all three groups were still within safe limits for spoilage markers, but the -18 °C group showed the greatest amount of fat breakdown and lost the most liquid. Once moved to regular refrigerated storage afterward, the -0.5 °C group took 96 hours to reach the spoilage cutoff, while the -5 °C and -18 °C groups spoiled faster, hitting that same limit in just 72 hours. In short, gentler pre-chilling (supercooling) kept the food fresher for longer, while harder freezing caused more damage and led to quicker spoilage later.¹

“Overall,” report the authors of the paper,¹ “supercooling at -0.5 °C provided the best beef quality preservation during short-term EPS-based distribution, highlighting the importance of appropriate pre-cooling state selection for e-commerce logistics.”

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References

1. Tang, Y.; Mu, B.; Sun, D. et al. Effects of Supercooling, Sub-Freezing, and Deep-Freezing Pre-Cooling on Freshness, Flavor, Water-Holding Capacity, and Microstructure of Beef During EPS-Based Distribution. Food Chem X 2026, 38, 104196. DOI: 10.1016/j.fochx.2026.104196
2. Xu, Y.; Wang, J.; Cao, K. Logistics Mode Strategy of Firms Selling Fresh Products on e-Commerce Platforms with Private Brand Introduction. J. Retail. Consum. Serv. 2023, 73, 103306. DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2023.103306
3. Nychas, G.-J. E.; Skandamis, P. N.; Tassou, C. C. et al. K.P. Koutsoumanis. Meat Spoilage During Distribution. Meat Sci.2008, 78 (1), 77-89. DOI: 10.1016/j.meatsci.2007.06.020
4. Guo, J.; Liu, D.; Lin, G. et al. Effects of Different Litchi E-Commerce Logistics Packaging Methods on Microenvironment and Fruit Quality Variations. Foods 2025, 14 (8), 1305. DOI: 10.3390/foods14081305