Case Study for Frozen Chicken Pot Pies

The Goal:

To show that frozen goods, in this case frozen chicken pot pies, could arrive at 48 hours still frozen, using only a single FrioBox as insulation and traditional refrigerant, saving storage space and cost over bulkier insulation options.

The Setup:

For this test, we used two 6 inch diameter pot pies stacked on top of each other, 4 lbs of gel packs at the bottom and around the sides of the pot pies, and 5 lbs of dry ice on top, all in a standard FrioBox liner with a plain shipper box.

The pot pies and the gel packs started at -10 degrees C (14 degrees F). Thermocouples were taped to the boxed pot pies: one at the bottom of the box to measure the gel packs, one in the middle between the two pot pies for an average, and one at the top which measured the dry ice. Afterward, the box was packed and sealed. The sealed box went into our environmental chamber at 25.6 degrees C (78 degrees F) for 48 hours.

The thermocouples were set up to take a temperature reading every minute for 2880 minutes (48 hours).

The Results:

Inside the FrioBox, the pot pies reached its coldest temperature of -24.8 degrees C (-12.6 degrees F) after about 6 hours, while the upper thermocouple measuring the dry ice didn't show a significant increase in temperature, indicating the sublimation of the dry ice, until nearly 30 hours. The chicken pot pies finished the test still frozen, at -2.6 degrees C (27 degrees F) at the warmest. In summary, a single FrioBox insert kept the frozen pot pies frozen for 48 hours using a combination of gel packs and dry ice.