Shipping, cold chain and handling

MatTek, an established case of centralised living-tissue manufacture with a working cold chain, ships its reconstructed human tissue models at four degrees on medium-supplemented agarose gels, produced in lots against a fixed weekly cadence: shipped Monday, delivered Tuesday morning by priority courier, with a four-day shelf life including transit.

The shelf life is not four days from arrival. Transit is inside the window. A shipment leaving Monday and arriving Tuesday morning has already consumed part of the window. A courier delay of twenty-four hours removes a quarter of a four-day window.

Different material has different windows. Cryopreserved cells in vapour-phase nitrogen are stable for as long as the shipper holds temperature, typically a week or more. Frozen material on dry ice is stable until the dry ice sublimates, which is measured in days and depends on the box. Live cultures and living tissue constructs are at the other extreme and are measured in days from production. The window for your line is stated on the quotation.

The format is stated on the quotation. A different format, such as a dry shipper instead of dry ice where your dock cannot guarantee same-day collection, can be requested at quotation stage. It normally costs more.

Living material ships on a cadence set by production and by the courier calendar.

• Production cadence. Suppliers of living tissue typically produce in lots on a fixed schedule and ship on fixed days. Miss the cut-off and the next opportunity is the following cycle, which may be a week later. We state the cadence and the cut-off on the quotation.
• Day-of-week constraints. Living and refrigerated material generally ships early in the week so that it does not sit in a depot over a weekend. Shipments are not usually dispatched on a Thursday or Friday. A public holiday at either end of the route removes a shipping day.
• Delivery window, not delivery date. Cold-chain shipments go by priority courier with a delivery commitment, often before a stated morning hour. A recipient must be present. A shipment refused at the door is treated as a delivery for risk purposes, and the material will usually not survive a redelivery.
• Geography constrains format. Live culture shipping works over short, direct routes. Across a long-haul route with a customs stop, live shipping is often not available and cryopreserved is the only option.

We confirm the dispatch date and the expected delivery window in writing before shipment, and we send tracking. Delivery dates are estimates unless the quotation calls a date committed. Where a permit is outstanding we hold the shipment, which is covered at export control, import permits and biosecurity.

Where the quotation states a shipment is temperature-logged, it contains a monitoring device and the record is supplied. Two device types are used.

• An indicator is a single-use device that changes state irreversibly if a threshold is crossed. It tells you that an excursion happened. It does not tell you how long or how far.
• A logger records temperature against time for the whole journey and produces a downloadable trace, recording when an excursion happened, its depth and its duration. These determine whether the material remains usable.

Logging is not universal. Some suppliers include it as standard, some offer it as a line item, and some do not offer it. The quotation states which. A logger must be requested at quotation stage; it cannot be added after a failed delivery.

Where a logger is present, read it on arrival. Where an indicator has tripped, photograph it before anything else. Both form part of the inspection in clause 6 and are required evidence for a claim.

The quote form asks what your facility can receive. Before a cold-chain order, confirm you have:

• a receiving point that will accept dry ice or a dry shipper. Some buildings and mail rooms prohibit both;
• a person available in the delivery window who knows the shipment is coming, with a named backup;
• a ventilated area to open the shipment, cryogenic gloves and eye protection;
• storage at the required temperature available immediately: a minus-80 freezer with free space, a nitrogen store, a fridge, or a prepared incubator;
• the institutional approvals and containment appropriate to the material, per research use only;
• the import permit, where one applies.

Notify us if any of these are absent. Alternatives such as a different format, a held shipment or a scheduled delivery date are available only before dispatch.

Risk passes on delivery. From that point the condition of the material is your responsibility. A claim depends on what is recorded at arrival.

Inspect immediately on arrival, and in any event within twenty-four hours of delivery, before the material is used, thawed beyond a viability check, or discarded. Do not throw the packaging away.

The inspection, in order:

1. Photograph the outer box before opening, including any damage and the courier labels.
2. Record the arrival time against the expected delivery window.
3. Check the refrigerant. Record whether dry ice is still present and approximately how much, and whether the dry shipper is still cold. A box with no dry ice remaining is a failed delivery regardless of the appearance of the contents.
4. Read and photograph any temperature indicator or logger before removing it from the box.
5. Check the packaging integrity, seals, secondary containment, breakage, leakage, and whether vials are still in their holder.
6. Check the contents against the packing list: line, lot, quantity, format.
7. Photograph the material in situ before transferring it to storage.
8. Transfer to the required storage condition immediately.
9. Tell us within twenty-four hours if anything is wrong, at [email protected], with the order reference and the photographs attached.

If the shipment appears compromised, notify us before thawing. A vial that has been discarded, or thawed and cultured, cannot be assessed afterwards, and a supplier or courier will decline a claim on material that no longer exists. Photographs taken on arrival are the evidentiary basis of a claim.

Where inspection does not occur within the window, our ability to recover from the supplier or the courier is reduced. Courier claim windows are short and cannot be extended by us.

Response by failure mode. Notify us in every case.

Where a delivery fails and it is not attributable to your facility, our remedy is, at our option and after discussion with you: replacement on the next available production and shipping cadence, re-performance of the service, or a refund of the amount paid for the affected line.

Replacement is bounded by the production cadence. Where a supplier produces living tissue in weekly lots, the earliest replacement is the next lot. A production cycle cannot be compressed.

Liability limit, restated from terms of service, clause 12: consequential losses arising from a failed delivery are not compensated. This includes booked instrument time, animal cohorts timed to the arrival, operator time, grant milestones and conference deadlines. Our liability is limited to the value of the affected line.

The cadence and the shelf life are stated at quotation stage. The available mitigation is scheduling: build slack around the delivery and hold a fallback for the instrument slot.

• Biological material cannot be returned to stock once it has left controlled conditions. We cannot accept a return of cells, tissue or media because a project changed.
• Dry shippers are returnable assets with a return deadline stated on the paperwork. Return them promptly using the supplied documentation. Late returns, damage and loss are chargeable.
• Do not return material without asking. Shipping biological material back is itself a regulated shipment with its own dangerous goods and permit requirements. An unauthorised return can create a compliance breach.
• Packaging disposal follows your institutional waste route. Dry ice should be allowed to sublimate in a ventilated space, never in a sealed container and never down a sink.
• Unopened ambient goods, devices, substrates, consumables, may be returnable subject to the supplier's terms. Ask before shipping anything back.

Cold-chain freight is a material fraction of the delivered cost of living material and on small orders can exceed the cost of the material. It covers priority courier, dangerous goods handling, validated packaging and a returnable dry shipper.

Freight, cold-chain consumables and any dry shipper hire are stated on the quotation, either itemised or explicitly named as excluded. Duties, import taxes, customs brokerage and inspection charges in your country are the buyer's, and are flagged where known to apply.

Two measures reduce the cost: consolidating orders so one shipment carries several lines, and using cryopreserved format where the protocol allows it. Live and refrigerated shipping costs more, constrains geography, and carries higher delivery risk than cryopreserved material in a dry shipper.

Enquiries on a shipment in progress: [email protected] with the order reference. Anything else: [email protected].