FedEx Debuts Cold Chain Center to Keep Shipments Chilled During Delays
FedEx's latest investment in its Memphis, Tennessee hub is an expensive insurance policy against spoiled medicines and food, wilted flowers and melted chocolates.
The company on March 29 unveiled the FedEx Cold Chain Center, designed to hold frozen, refrigerated and controlled room temperature shipments when they're delayed in transit through the hub.
Built over the past two years at a cost of more than $25 million, the center gives FedEx a competitive advantage in the expanding business of transporting pharmaceuticals and medical supplies, FedEx executives say.
"Health care is a long-term global growth market," FedEx senior vice president Mike Mitchell told customers, FedEx employees and community leaders attending a ribbon cutting at the facility at 2617 Democrat Road on the north side of Memphis International Airport.
"Globalization of the medical and pharmaceutical industries represents an opportunity for you, our customers, and us in the transportation and logistics sector," Mitchell said.
The center gives customers assurance that products will arrive fully viable, no matter what unforeseen delays occur, FedEx officials said. A cold chain is a temperature-controlled series of storage and distribution activities.
Richard Smith, FedEx vice president for global trade services, said, "You have approximately one in four health care shipments that are temperature sensitive, so when you have delays of the regulatory variety, or weather, or potentially mechanical issues, you need a place to store these products at the right temperature range so that the integrity can be protected. And it's a growing need that customers have."
Smith said, "There are some products so sensitive, like DNA or biologic materials, that they could not have been shipped a great distance even just a few short years ago. Now they can. That is a reason why our cold chain center is a key part of our FedEx global solutions portfolio."
Drug-maker McKesson ships biological products, vaccines and oncologics, a cancer-fighting therapy, from Memphis distribution facilities, often through FedEx, said Tom Hart, McKesson vice president of distribution operations for specialty business.
"It can happen that weather events cause delays in shipment, and having a facility like this, committed to storing that product till it gets safely where it needs to go, is a huge advantage," Hart said.
Pfizer senior director of business solutions Sanna Ihrefjord said FedEx's cold-storage capabilities are "reassurance that we're keeping cold chain in every situation for a product, which is so critical." Pfizer's main North American pharmaceutical warehouse is in Memphis.
"One of the big things we have in the cold chain is Prevnar vaccine, which is really sensitive from a temperature perspective," Ihrefjord said. "A product like Prevnar cannot go out of temperature range or it will not have its efficacy. You don't want to give a child the vaccine without it functioning."
Mitchell, who is senior vice president of global planning and engineering, told the customers, "This facility represents just how important the health care industry is to FedEx. You're involved in clinical trials, diagnostics, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals."
"These are life-changing, life-saving shipments. Yours are some of the most vitally important shipments we could ever handle, anywhere in the world. Precise temperature control is essential to make sure your medicines and materials arrive intact," Mitchell said.
The cold-storage facility has separate areas for health care shipments and other perishables, such as flowers and food, and offers storage within three temperature ranges: frozen (minus 13 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit), cold (35.6 to 46.4 degrees) and controlled room temperature (59 to 77 degrees).
A round-the-clock staff monitors conditions in the storage areas and makes that information available to shippers on a near real-time basis.
The center replaces a hodgepodge of refrigerators, freezers and refrigerated trailers scattered around the hub to hold shipments at proper temperatures during delays.
The 20,000-square-foot center is located inside an 83,000-square-foot building that also houses heavyweight freight docks and offices.
Smith said FedEx maintains a variety of cold-chain capabilities at points across its network, including Paris and Cologne, Germany, and has been working on upgrades at Oakland, California; Osaka, Japan; Dubai and Singapore. The Memphis facility is the largest, most advanced in the network.
FedEx ranks No. 2 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.
