IoT-enabled cold chain monitoring involves using connected devices and sensors to track perishable foods, medical supplies, and other sensitive goods during the delivery and storage to ensure they are preserved in prescribed conditions. This is a rapidly growing use case of IoT in logistics, as indicated by various market studies. Future Market Insights, for instance, forecasts the IoT for cold chain monitoring market to grow at a CAGR of 13.9% from 2025 to 2035 and reach $29.6 billion by 2035.
In this article, experts from Itransition, a company with 5+ years of experience in IoT software development, explore the concept of IoT-enabled cold chain monitoring, how it works, and how it benefits businesses.
The following algorithm describes how the IoT technology can be implemented and applied in practice for cold chain monitoring:
- Sensor setup
Connected sensors are installed across storage and transportation units (crates, containers, trucks, etc.) for data tracking.
- Data gathering and transmission
Sensors automatically collect temperature, humidity, and location data and wirelessly transmit it to a centralized IoT platform.
- Data processing
An IoT solution processes incoming data and monitors it in real-time to spot deviations from normal environmental conditions of stored and transported goods.
- Alerting
If temperature or other tracked parameters fall beyond the acceptable standard, the platform can automatically alert the staff via email, SMS, or mobile app notifications.
Benefits of IoT-enabled cold chain monitoring:
Here are the notable positive effects of logistics companies can get by implementing IoT monitoring technology for cold chain management:
Reduced waste
The waste of perishable goods has negative financial consequences for both companies, as they incur direct losses from spoiled products and waste disposal, and consumers, as these losses are typically passed on to them through price increases. For instance, IQVIA in its 2025 report estimates that the costs associated with vaccine wastage across cold chains account for 70% of the total costs of vaccines. Implementing IoT for closely monitoring temperature conditions in a cold chain is a great way to prevent and reduce excessive waste.
Enhanced cost-efficiency
Manual monitoring and control of cold storage facilities’, vehicles’, or products’ conditions require extensive human resources, which in turn can contribute to increased labor costs for companies. Implementing IoT to monitor cold chain conditions can significantly automate this labor-intensive process, with the technology bringing significant cost reduction in the long run.
Improved compliance
With traditional cold chain monitoring processes, ensuring compliance with FDA, DOT, and other regulators’ standards can be challenging, as temperature control, record-keeping, and reporting are highly labor-intensive and error-prone when done manually. The adoption of IoT can help a company overcome compliance management complexity in its cold chain, as it enables collecting temperature data in real-time, which is critical for preventing temperature excursions and product spoilage, causing compliance violations. Based on the data from sensors, IoT platforms can also automatically generate precise temperature reports, which can be used to provide proof of compliance to regulators.
How IoT-enabled cold chain monitoring is used in logistics
Let’s now take a brief look at three real-world examples highlighting how IoT monitoring is applied across various companies’ cold chains:
Walmart:
Walmart, the largest retailer in the US, has been actively utilizing IoT to monitor product flows for over 20 years already, and now it plans to deploy millions of ambient IoT sensors nationwide. These sensors record temperature, humidity, and location of goods and transmit this data to corporate AI-enabled systems, which analyze it in real-time and alert staff of any deviations, helping ensure supply chain efficiency and cold chain compliance.
ACES:
The vaccine cold-chain system in Rwanda continuously suffers from vaccine loss due to temperature-related issues, which negatively impacts the health of Rwandan communities. To reduce waste, the Africa Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Cooling and Cold-Chain (ACES) launched a project using IoT technology for remote monitoring of vaccines. The project is aimed to help healthcare workers track 30,000 vaccine doses across Rwanda’s cold-chain and gain real-time data on temperature and cold chain integrity to ensure vaccine quality.
DHL:
DHL, a large US-based logistics provider, deployed temperature sensors to monitor sensitive goods back in 2013. Since then, DHL’s sensors have evolved, and today, they can track a broader range of data, including product locations and vibration in shipping containers, so the amount of gathered data, as well as its detalization, has increased dramatically. Its analysis enables DHL to gain a clear understanding of the environmental conditions of products across various transport routes, carriers, and seasons, ultimately helping DHL optimize its supply chains. “Data analysis can reveal that, for nine months of the year, you could use passive cooling on a particular route, only requiring an active system at the height of summer or the dead of winter,” explains Larry St. Onge, president of life sciences & healthcare at DHL.
Implementing IoT for cold chain monitoring can be beneficial for any company seeking to enhance the traceability of its cold chain, streamline time-consuming and error-prone temperature checks, and improve compliance with transportation and storage regulations. The growing use of technology across cold chains in retail, healthcare, and other industries indicates a high business value companies see in IoT-enabled cold chain monitoring.
If you plan to leverage IoT technology to enhance your cold chain management practices, consider turning to an experienced IoT services provider to help you undergo an IoT transformation more smoothly. Such a technology partner can assess your unique business requirements to design and deliver an efficient IoT solution that perfectly matches them, while adhering to your budget and timeline expectations during IoT development.
Roman Davydov is a Technology Observer at Itransition with over five years of experience in the IT industry. Roman monitors and analyzes the latest technology trends, helping businesses make informed software decisions that align with their strategic goals.
