Why summer is a documented quality problem in this trade

One of the suppliers the Journal tracks has suspended shipping to Poland following a run of consignments detained at the border. No statement has been published; the suspension is visible only in the checkout process, which no longer accepts addresses in that market. We have written to ask whether it is permanent and whether affected customers are being refunded.

Transit times on the lane moved from a median of nine days to a median of 20. Phase-change cold packs of the type commonly used in this trade are typically specified for 72 to 120 hours depending on configuration and ambient profile, which puts a substantial fraction of these shipments outside specification for the majority of the journey.

Every one of the twenty companies in the Journal’s dossier programme now ships with a temperature indicator in the carton, which is not true of the wider market. On our own purchasing record, an unindicated parcel is not a parcel that stayed cold; it is a parcel about which nothing is known. Suppliers that require indicator evidence for a replacement claim while shipping no indicator have constructed an unfalsifiable position.

Nkosana Dube, pharmaceutical procurement adviser, said customs holds are the unbudgeted risk. "A pack qualified for seventy-two hours meets a four-day queue and nobody is told. The paperwork problem and the temperature problem are one problem."

We have asked three suppliers whether they will begin shipping indicators as standard. Two have replied; the answers are in their dossiers.