Innovating Sustainable Cold Chain Technologies with Ranjeet Banerjee

Think of any physical product or service you don’t just use but rely upon. How much time have you spent thinking about how it travels from the factory to a store – let alone your own doorstep? It is all too easy to take the availability of products for granted, but ensuring the safe transport of goods is absolutely essential in our increasingly globalised world – not least when it comes to delivering items such as vaccines, as we’ve seen in the last few years.

Gov Kandola, Senior Consultant for our Transport & Logistics practice, was pleased to welcomeCold Chain TechnologiesCEO,Ranjeet Banerjee, to the Venari Podcast recently. In this fascinating episode, Ranjeet shared his insights on his company’s practices and developments in sustainable packaging, as well as digital innovations.

CCT has grown since its establishment in the 1960s to become a global leader in thermal packaging assurance solutions. ‘Our focus is on life sciences and it covers vaccines, drugs, biologics and all kinds of pharmaceutical ingredients and substances’, Ranjeet says. Put simply, the company must ensure that the temperature of the products they transport is tightly controlled and conducted under very specific conditions. Even small variations can negatively affect the efficacy of the cargo. Ranjeet estimates that $300-400 billion worth of life science products are transported each year – up to 10% of which is thrown away. ‘So, you’re talking about billions of dollars of waste happening primarily as a result of temperature not being maintained [...] Beyond the money, there’s a huge patient safety aspect.’

Given the high rate of waste in transporting vaccines and medicines, high-performing, cost-effective sustainable packaging solutions are a huge part of CCT’s agenda. They have had considerable success with EcoFlex, which has been the principal means of transport for COVID vaccines in the US for the last two-and-a-half years. Furthermore, their TRUEtemp Naturals line of products, which they acquired last year, is single-use but fully recyclable at curb side; it can also be repulped. Ranjeet notes that last year, CCT decided to aim for avoiding 50 million lbs of waste by 2025. ‘We are well on our way towards meeting that goal and we actually upped [it at the] end of last year to 60 million lbs.’’

Digital initiatives are also at the forefront of CCT’s focus. They entered cell and gene therapy developments with COVID and mRNA vaccines, which have to be transported at very cold temperatures (from -25° all the way to -70° or -80° Celsius). The last leg of the journey is especially important, which is why CCT has introduced functions to digitally monitor the temperature and location of products during the last mile. Users are informed by digital notifications; Ranjeet advises that predictive functions will be an increasingly important offering from the company going forward. They have built on their work in gene therapy and mRNA vaccines, in the meantime, to offer new products such as theCCT Therashield, combining sustainability and high performance.

So, what does the next year hold for the company? More of the same: developing new products that marry high-functioning temperature assurance with cost-effective, sustainable manufacturing and delivery. CCT is ‘also building in the digital capability upfront,’ Ranjeet says, ‘so that it's a whole complete solution [...] that we are providing to our customers, and doing that globally.’ CCT continues to expand worldwide and operates in every region. ‘Our goal is to be that partner of choice for our customers globally as it comes to choosing the right thermal assurance packaging, designing it, validating it, manufacturing it, being the supply chain partner all through. And being the comprehensive partner and the knowledge partner, the partner to trust as drugs, vaccines, cell, and gene therapy modalities grow globally.’

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