According the Food Standards Agency, the law requires caterers to keep certain foods at specified temperatures for food safety reasons. Chilled foods must be kept at or below 8ºC, while foods that are being kept hot before serving should remain at or above 63ºC.

If you are unsure what regulations apply to you, contact the environmental health service at your local authority.

To have a van at the right temperature it is important to order one with standby, preferable single phase, so you can plug it in both at your premises and at the clients. Fridge vans will maintain a given temperature, if they are built well and have the right refrigeration unit, for anything up to two hours if you don’t open the doors. Plugging them in ensures you keep the temperature right without having to have the engine running.

Refrigerated vehicles are not designed to bring food down to temperature, only to maintain a temperature. If you load products at 18ºC in the hope that they’ll be brought down to 8ºC, it won’t happen. The unit will think it needs to defrost and just keep kicking into that cycle until the products are removed.

If you’re going to serve ice-cream remember that most freezer vans will achieve -18ºC and you really need -21ºC. Ensure you tell your supplier this is what you want. It can be done but usually costs more. A simpler solution is to store the ice cream in eutectic freezer boxes within the chiller.

Temperature printers are now fairly standard on vans and its good idea to use them throughout your event. You should be able to produce a delivery ticket which shows the temperature maintained throughout the event at the press of a button. Get two copies, have your client sign one and take one back for your records. If anything does go awry later at least you’ll be able to state that the fridge was at the right temperature.

Make sure your supplier has enough vehicles in his fleet. This ensures they’re not going to let you down on the day and, in the event of a break down, they’ll have a vehicle to replace it with.

Finally, don’t be afraid to ask for advice; you’re a caterer, not a commercial vehicle specialist!

A regular customer of theirs, a well-known supermarket chain, set them a challenge when they asked for 30 refrigerated panel vans for their Christmas rush. SDS could have used their usual supply network but on this occasion, and from a recommendation, they called Cold Logic.

“Having passed Cold Logic the order with locations, dates etc, Paul responded within 24 hours with supplier details, contact names, addresses and vehicle types to be supplied.” Said John Frost of SDS, ” within 48 hours we had every supermarket location covered with everyone knowing what was required of them and when. Cold Logic understood our requirements and fulfilled them completely. We will certainly be using them again!”

“Our 30 years of experience has taught us which rental companies can be trusted for business of this type.” Said Paul Tuszynski, Director of Cold Logic Limited. “By using only the best in the industry we were able to satisfy SDS, their customer and our suppliers. We look forward to meeting the challenge again soon!”

Anyone who knows about quality Spanish food and wine will know C and D Wines. Based in Sydenham, London, they have a reputation for delivering nothing but the best whilst also arriving on time with the order as requested.

In order to further improve their delivery service they have taken delivery of a new Fiat Doblo to act as ’sweeper’ for late orders and dispatch support. The single compartment freezer pulls down to -20 whilst fitting in with the overall continental feel of the business.

“There are dozens of potential suppliers for refrigerated vans in London but having had a challenging time in the past, we wanted to be sure all aspects of this purchase were considered’ said Felix Benito, Managing Director. ‘The industry and we know Cold Logic consultant Paul Tuszynski well and were happy to engage him to advise on this purchase. The solution offered satisfies all our requirements, is Euro 4 compliant and remains well within our budget. Cold Logic was useful in applying pressure when the delivery dates were extended and actually delivered the van personally!”

Paul Tuszynski responded “We give a commitment to our customers to supply on time and on budget and we’ll do everything possible to make it happen, even if we have to deliver the finished article personally!”

London, March 2008:

New solution for vehicle acquisition

Neil Blakeman, Managing Director of Vale St Hubert Foods Limited, has taken delivery of four new automatic Sprinter chassis cabs with dual compartment bodies by Cold Car SpA and GAH refrigeration. Most originally St Hubert chose to use the services of consultancy, Cold Logic Limited.

“We know how to buy and distribute supplies to our customers and we know what we want the vehicles to be capable of’ said Neil ‘but how can we keep up to speed with vehicle developments and be sure of buying the right equipment? For us, the right solution was to ask! We commissioned Cold Logic to find the best solution for our specific needs both in London and in Worcestershire. Paul Tuszynski, of Cold Logic, spent time with us to understand fully how we operate and came up with reasoned arguments for the chassis, body configuration and the choice of fridge. Paul placed the orders, managed the finance and the delivery, leaving us free to get on with running our business”

Paul commented “Most of the clients we deal with at Cold Logic insist on confidentiality agreements so we tend to have a fairly low profile but St Hubert’s are kind enough to allow us to talk about their solutions. When discussing our proposals with them, they made it very clear that reducing Co2 emissions is a top priority not just a PR exercise. Whilst we have satisfied that requirement today, future solutions for the rest of the fleet will reduce emissions further still.

I am encouraged by the attitude of all our customers to global warming. Where we can show a reduction in Co2 emissions and, in some cases, save on whole life costs, clients are quick to embrace the new technologies.

We look forward to sharing our 30 years experience with other clients and helping them take the first steps to a greener fleet!