How to Ship Food: Frozen, Refrigerated and Baked Goods

The first decision in shipping food isn't the box or the carrier. It's whether the product has to stay cold. A dozen cookies ride in a padded box on a ground service and cost about what any small package costs. A dozen frozen tamales need a foam cooler, dry ice, an overnight label and a hazmat marking, and the postage alone can pass the value of the order. Sort your products into the right lane first and the rest of the decisions get much easier.

Does it need to stay cold, or just arrive intact?

The USDA's own advice to home shippers is to "send foods that do not require refrigeration" whenever possible, and it names hard salami, hard cheese and country ham as examples. That's the cheapest lane, and more products fit in it than most new food brands assume.

A few products sit on the line. USDA's mail-order storage chart lists processed and hard cheese as "safe at room temperature" while soft cheese like cream cheese must arrive refrigerator cold, so a cheddar and a brie need different packaging even from the same maker. Chocolate melts at about 80°F, so FedEx suggests a gel pack with it in warm months even though it's otherwise shelf-stable. Fresh fruit and vegetables are a special case. USPS mails them only in a dry condition, meaning dry, not dried: the produce can't be wet, but it doesn't have to be dehydrated. UPS only takes produce on a contract basis from regular-volume shippers.

What the carriers allow, and what they charge

All three major US carriers accept perishable food domestically. The rules that trip up small shippers are about fees, dry ice and international mail.

USPS

USPS adds a Live Animal and Perishable Handling Fee to packages declared as perishable. Per the current Notice 123 price list, it's $7.50 per piece on Priority Mail Express and USPS Ground Advantage, and $15.00 on Priority Mail, at both retail and commercial prices. Factor it into your shipping charge; it applies on top of postage.

Perishables go through the mail at the sender's own risk. USPS's position in Publication 52 is that mailable perishable matter may be sent "at the mailer's own risk" when it's packaged as required and can be delivered before it deteriorates. Meats and meat products are mailable domestically only when they comply with USDA regulations.

Dry ice is allowed in domestic mail as a refrigerant, with rules that depend on whether the piece flies. Under Packaging Instruction 9A:

• Pieces that may travel by air (Priority Mail Express, and Priority Mail unless it's marked for surface): no more than 5 pounds of dry ice per piece, a Class 9 hazard label, the marking "Dry Ice, UN1845", and a Shipper's Declaration for Dangerous Goods in triplicate attached to the outside.
• Surface transport: more than 5 pounds is allowed, no declaration or Class 9 label is needed, but the piece must be marked "Surface Only" and "Dry Ice, UN1845" and must never be routed by air.
• Every piece, either way, must be marked with what's being cooled and the net weight of dry ice, and the packaging must let carbon dioxide gas escape.
• International mail: prohibited. No dry ice leaves the country through USPS.

The simpler USPS route for a small brand is the surface one: mark the box "Surface Only", skip the declaration and Class 9 label, pack more dry ice, and accept the slower transit.

FedEx

FedEx's perishables guide recommends First Overnight, Priority Overnight or Standard Overnight, and it sets out the packaging it expects: an insulated foam container with walls at least 1-1/2 inches thick, perishable products double-bagged in watertight bags of at least 2-mil thickness, and gel packs rather than wet ice. It says gel coolants keep contents between 34°F and 50°F and reserves dry ice for frozen items.

FedEx's service terms matter more than the packaging list. They require every perishable shipment, overnight included, to be packed for at least 24 hours more transit than the delivery commitment, and for longer still if it will travel over a weekend or holiday. The same terms put damage from heat or cold at the shipper's risk, say that improper packaging releases FedEx from liability for spoiled perishables, and have shippers agree not to file damage claims for perishables sent by FedEx Ground or FedEx Home Delivery. Dry ice is dangerous goods at FedEx: only employees trained in dangerous goods can prepare a company's dry ice shipments, and the guide points shippers to a dangerous-goods line for the specifics. For packages shipped May through September, FedEx suggests Hold at Location or Signature Required so the box isn't left on a hot porch.

UPS

UPS's food shipping guide says to plan for a maximum transit time of 30 hours, recommends Next Day Air, and allows that 2nd Day Air "may be suitable for foods that require minimal temperature control". It puts gel packs at 32°F to 60°F and dry ice for anything that must stay frozen, and it flags air restrictions once a package carries more than 5.5 pounds of dry ice. UPS also says to pre-cool the insulated container before packing, never to wrap dry ice so the gas can escape, and never to let dry ice touch the food directly. For the general rulebook, see our guide to UPS shipping rules.

How to pack frozen food

Frozen is the lane where a packing mistake costs the whole order, so build the package from the inside out.

1. Freeze the product solid, and freeze it in the portion and wrapper it will ship in. Partially frozen product thaws first.
2. Double-bag anything that can leak or thaw, in 2-mil or heavier watertight bags, and put an absorbent pad in the bottom of the cooler.
3. Use a foam cooler with walls at least 1-1/2 inches thick, pre-chilled, and put the cooler inside a new corrugated box. Thicker walls mean less coolant per day.
4. Put dry ice on top of the product, not under it. Cold air sinks. Keep a layer of cardboard or paper between dry ice and food.
5. Fill every gap with bubble wrap or paper. Air gaps are where the cold leaks out.
6. Don't tape the cooler airtight. Dry ice turns to gas, and a sealed container can rupture. Tape the outer box normally.
7. Mark the outer box: "Perishable", "Keep Frozen", "Contains Dry Ice" with the net weight, and the UN1845 marking your carrier requires.

How much dry ice? FedEx and UPS both give a rule of thumb of 5 to 10 pounds for every 24 hours in transit, and both suggest adding enough for an extra day to cover delays. Treat that as a starting range, not your number: the real rate depends on cooler wall thickness, box size, product mass and the weather on the route. On USPS, a piece that may travel by air is capped at 5 pounds of dry ice however long the trip. Test it before you sell it: pack a real order, leave it in a warm room for your transit time plus 24 hours, and weigh what's left. If any dry ice remains and the product is still hard-frozen, that's your amount. If it's gone, add more or move to a thicker cooler. Run the test again in July.

How to pack refrigerated food

Refrigerated food has a narrower target than frozen: below 40°F for the whole trip, which is the line USDA uses to judge whether it arrived safe, but not so cold that gel packs freeze a soft cheese or a cheesecake solid. Gel packs alone don't guarantee that. FedEx says they hold 34°F to 50°F and UPS says 32°F to 60°F, and the warm end of both ranges is above 40°F, so the packing has to keep the box at the cold end for as long as it's in transit.

• Freeze gel packs solid and surround the product, not just the top. Soft cheese and cheesecake are dense enough to hold cold, but they warm from the sides.
• Wrap cheese in its own paper or plastic, then bag it. Wet gel packs sweating onto a bare wedge is how cheese arrives moldy.
• Put the product and gel packs inside an insulated box or liner, then inside a corrugated box with cushioning. Ship it in two days or less. In summer, add packs, use a thicker liner, and consider overnight.
• Label the outer box "Perishable" and "Keep Refrigerated", and tell the recipient when it's arriving.

Hard and aged cheeses don't need any of this. USDA lists them as safe at room temperature with refrigeration only prolonging quality, so a cheddar, a parmesan or a gouda ships in the shelf-stable lane, wrapped and cushioned. That's also why a harder style is the easier one to ship nationally.

How to pack baked goods

Cookies, bars, brownies and most cakes travel without refrigeration. The two enemies are crushing and staleness, so the packaging is closer to shipping fragile items than to shipping perishables.

• Cool everything completely before wrapping. Warm baked goods sweat inside plastic, and condensation makes a soggy cookie and a damp box.
• Wrap each item or each stack so the bag is airtight: shrink bags or heat-sealed cellophane for cookies, plastic wrap around cakes, shrink wrap for sturdy things like bundt cakes and pies. UPS suggests freezing iced cupcakes and intricately decorated cakes before shipping so they hold their shape.
• Pack cookies snugly in a tin or rigid container, with parchment between layers so they don't slide. Cupcakes go in a holder with individual wells. For macarons and other delicate sandwich cookies, UPS recommends a square of bubble wrap between each one.
• Put the tin or container in the center of a sturdy box with 2 to 3 inches of cushioning on every side, and shake it. If anything moves, add more.
• Choose the product for the trip. Chewy cookies, bars and dense cakes survive; thin crisp cookies and anything with a soft filling or fresh dairy don't, or need the refrigerated lane.

For cost, baked goods are the easy case. They ship as ordinary packages on USPS Ground Advantage or a carrier ground service, with no coolant and no insulated box. Add a gel pack for chocolate-heavy items in summer and you're done.

When to ship, and where not to

Ship Monday through Wednesday. FedEx, UPS and USDA all say the same thing: a perishable package should not sit in a facility over a weekend. Skip the days before a holiday, when transit stretches. If you take cold orders on Thursday, hold them to Monday and say so at checkout.

Don't ship perishable food to a business address unless you know someone will be there on a workday with refrigerator space. Tell the customer the delivery date in advance so the box isn't on a doorstep all afternoon. For the warm months, FedEx's Hold at Location and a signature requirement are cheap insurance against a box baking on a porch.

What it actually costs to ship cold

A frozen or refrigerated order carries four costs that a cookie order doesn't: the overnight or 2-day label, the coolant, the insulated container, and on USPS the perishable fee. Price them before you list the product, not after the first order comes in.

Get a real quote for your typical cold order, packed and weighed with coolant, to the farthest zone you serve. Overnight rates climb steeply with weight and distance, and a foam cooler with dry ice adds pounds. Then decide how you'll recover it. The usual choices are a flat cold-shipping charge per order, a minimum order size for frozen items, free shipping only above a threshold that covers the cooler, or limiting frozen shipping to the zones you can reach in two days by ground. Whichever you pick, put the ship-day cutoff on the product page. "Orders placed after Tuesday ship the following Monday" prevents a lot of refunds.

See our rundown of Priority Mail Express and FedEx Priority Overnight for what each overnight service commits to.

If it arrives warm or broken

USDA tells recipients to open a "Keep Refrigerated" package immediately and check it with a food thermometer: it should be frozen, partially frozen with ice crystals visible, or at least below 40°F. If it's warmer than that, their advice is to notify the company and not to eat it, not even to taste it. For a brand, that means the customer's complaint is correct and the only answer is a replacement or a refund.

Don't count on the carrier to cover it. USPS carries perishables at the mailer's own risk, and FedEx's terms do the same for heat and cold damage. UPS offers a separate protection product for time- and temperature-sensitive goods that can include spoilage coverage; read what it covers before you rely on it. Build a replacement rate into the cold-shipping charge, and treat every warm arrival as a packing test you failed, with the fix being more coolant, a thicker cooler, or a faster service.

Breakage is a different problem with a simpler fix: more cushioning and a sturdier inner container. Our guide to shipping fragile items covers the method.

Shipping food internationally

Keep it to shelf-stable products. USPS rules say fresh meats, fruits, vegetables and anything that decomposes easily are nonmailable in international mail, and dry ice can't go internationally at all through USPS. Even for shelf-stable food, check the destination's entry in the USPS Individual Country Listing or the carrier's country rules, since many countries restrict dairy, meat products and home-prepared food, and the recipient may owe duties and taxes.

Declare the contents and value accurately. A customs form is a legal declaration, and a paid order is not a gift, however small. If you also ship liquids such as sauces or drinks, see our guide to shipping liquids.

When to hand it to a fulfillment company

Frozen and refrigerated product needs a warehouse with freezer and cooler space and staff who pack with dry ice every day. That's a cold-chain 3PL, and it's a narrower market than general fulfillment. Most general ecommerce warehouses, including ours, run at room temperature and don't take refrigerated or frozen inventory.

Shelf-stable food is a different story. Simpl stores and ships ambient food and beverage from our Austin warehouse: packaged snacks, coffee and tea, jerky, candy, sauces and condiments, canned and bottled drinks. We pick first-in, first-out and track best-by dates in the warehouse system so older stock ships first, and orders in by 12pm CT ship the same day. If that's your product mix, the food and beverage fulfillment page covers how it works. If you ship cold, keep packing it yourself until the volume justifies a cold-chain partner, and use the tests above to make it reliable.

Sources

• USPS Notice 123, Price List (Live Animal and Perishable Handling Fee footnotes)
• USPS Publication 52, sections 51, 53, 55 and 644, and Packaging Instruction 9A, Dry Ice
• USPS FAQ, "How Do I Ship Food"
• FedEx, "How to ship perishables"
• UPS, "How To Ship Food"
• USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service, "Mail Order Food Safety"
• FedEx Service Guide, U.S. terms, "Perishables or temperature-sensitive"
• FedEx, "How to ship dry ice"
• UPS, "How To Ship Dry Ice"