A food manufacturer books a refrigerated truck for a load of chilled product. The booking form has one line for temperature. The person filling it in assumes there is a Thai rule behind that line: a legal range for chilled food in transit, and a government licence that proves the carrier can hold it.
There is less behind that line than most people think. Reading the rules in Thai shows that the law is mostly silent on the number, binds a different party from the one driving, and treats the carrier's cold chain certificate as optional. The practical result is that the temperature on a Thai chilled load is whatever your paperwork says it is. If the paperwork is thin, so is your position when something goes wrong.
This covers food. Medicines have their own regime and are not covered here.
The food law binds the owner of the food
The Food Act sets the base rule. Section 25 forbids producing, importing for sale or selling impure food, counterfeit food and food below standard. Section 26 lists what counts as impure, and one item matters here: food that was produced, packed or kept without proper hygiene. Section 58 sets the penalty for breaking the ban on impure food at up to two years in prison, a fine of up to 20,000 baht, or both.
Look at who the section names: whoever produces, whoever imports for sale, whoever sells. A transportation company is none of those. The duty to put safe food on the market sits with the owner, and the truck is one of the places where the owner can lose it.
So the Act does not make a warm load the carrier's regulatory problem. It is the owner's, because whether the food can still be sold is the owner's food safety decision, and selling impure food is exactly what Section 25 prohibits. What the carrier owes the owner is a question for the contract and the Civil and Commercial Code, below.
What Notification 420 says about transport
The main hygiene rule for food premises is Ministry of Public Health Notification No. 420 B.E. 2563. It applies to producers, and to importers through the certificate they must hold. It excludes four kinds of premises, among them restaurants that cook for immediate consumption and street vendors.
On moving food it says very little. In the basic requirements, clause 3.9.2 asks the producer to store and transport food for sale in a suitable way, with equipment or vehicles that keep its quality and can be washed easily enough to prevent cross-contamination. That is the whole of it. No range, no probe, no logger.
The text does contain one figure. For pasteurised ready-to-drink milk products, the specific rules require the product to be held at no more than 8 degrees Celsius at all times after pasteurisation, in storage and in transport, with the result recorded. We searched the full text for every mention of degrees and of transport. That is the only temperature in it tied to carriage.
| Where the law is exact | Where it leaves the choice to you |
|---|---|
| Pasteurised ready-to-drink milk products: 8 degrees or below, recorded, including in transport | Every other chilled food: "suitable" vehicle and equipment, no range |
| The producer or importer carries the duty | Whether the carrier checks, logs or proves anything |
| The vehicle must keep quality and be washable | How the box is cooled, loaded and monitored |
Other notifications may set rules for particular products, and the annex itself has specific parts for some. Check your own product's rule before assuming the general one is all there is. But for most chilled food moved by most manufacturers, the law does not hand you a number.
The carrier's cold chain standard is voluntary
Thailand does have a standard written for exactly this job. The Department of Land Transport runs Q Cold Chain, a certification for carriers moving agricultural products and food in temperature-controlled trucks. It targets chilled and frozen goods and fruit and vegetables. It does not yet cover medicines or parcels.
It has ten requirements in four areas:
- Transport operations (3). Judge your own capability before taking a job, using the product, the temperature range, the packaging, the truck type and the measuring equipment. Keep a procedure for checking the truck, pre-cooling, loading and recording temperature. Keep an emergency plan for a truck or refrigeration breakdown, with a mobile repair contact, the steps to take, and a record of what happened.
- Cleanliness (2). Clean the box and equipment to a written method and keep the records, using cleaning agents that are safe for food and leave no smell.
- Truck and maintenance (2). Fit and check temperature recording equipment, and keep plans and results for maintaining the refrigeration unit and for calibrating the instruments.
- People (2). Train drivers and handlers in the truck, the box and how to load and unload, and check the health of staff who touch the goods.
The Revenue Department has said in writing that the three Land Transport announcements behind this and the general Q Mark are about voluntary certification. A carrier without the certificate is not breaking a law, and one with it has shown a system, not a guarantee for your product.
That is still a useful list. It tells you what a careful carrier's paperwork looks like, and it is the cheapest checklist you can hold a quote against.
So the contract sets the cold
If neither the Food Act nor Notification 420 fixes your range, and the carrier standard is optional, the agreement between you and the carrier is the only place the temperature exists. Put these in it:
- The range, per product. Take it from your own product specification, not from what the carrier's unit usually does. If two products share a truck, say so and give both.
- Pre-cooling. The box is brought to the range before loading, and the carrier shows the reading at the dock. Warm goods into a cold box is a different problem from a cold box that failed.
- The logger. Where the probe sits, how often it records, who keeps the data and when you get it. Delivery day, not when a claim arrives.
- What counts as a breach. How far out of range and for how long. The Q Cold Chain list sets no such threshold, so decide it before the first load.
- The breakdown plan. Who is called, how long the carrier has to fix it, and at what point the load moves to another truck.
- Rejected loads. Who decides whether goods that went out of range are sold, held or destroyed. Given Section 25, that should be you.
- Cleaning. A record per trip or per period, whichever you agree.
A road freight contract clause by clause shows where these sit among the other terms.
When the load arrives warm
The Civil and Commercial Code gives the claim its shape. Under Section 616 the carrier is liable for goods lost, damaged or late unless it proves one of three causes: force majeure, the nature of the goods themselves, or the fault of the sender or consignee.
Chilled food that arrives warm is where the second and third causes get argued. The carrier says the product went in at the wrong temperature, or the packing was poor, or the nature of the goods is that they spoil. The owner says the unit failed. Each side is describing a cause, and the Code asks the carrier to prove its cause.
Proof comes from a record. A logger trace showing a sound pre-cool, a steady range, and a rise starting at hour six points at the unit. One showing warm product at loading points at the sender. With no trace, both sides are arguing from memory, and a dispute that could be settled in an afternoon takes months. The logger and the pre-cool reading in the list above are what decide which side of Section 616 you stand on. Who pays when goods arrive damaged covers the rest of the claim, including who may sue and the time limits.
A VAT trap in the refrigerated carriage contract
One Revenue Department ruling, dated 2024-01-08, shows how a refrigerated contract can change its tax character. A carrier hauling chilled ham, eggs and sausages in temperature-controlled trucks under a one-year contract was also bound to return empty crates, bring damaged and returned goods back to the distribution centre, pay a fine of 100 baht for each late signed document and 200 baht for each lost one, and answer for every loss, force majeure included.
The Department treated the whole arrangement as a hire of work under Section 587 of the Civil and Commercial Code, liable to VAT, rather than plain carriage. The refrigeration was not the reason. The extra duties were. The carrier had argued that cold chain rules made these part of ordinary carriage, and the Department answered that those rules are voluntary.
The practical point is narrow: the more duties you add around the carriage, the more likely the invoice stops being a simple freight line. Reading a Thai freight invoice covers how the tax treatment changes with what the invoice says. It is one ruling on one set of facts, so ask your accountant before you rely on it.
Before the first chilled load
- Write the range for each product, and who decides it.
- Ask the carrier for the pre-cool reading and the logger data on every trip.
- Ask what its emergency plan is, in writing. A certified carrier must have one.
- Decide the breach threshold and who rules on a rejected load.
- Keep the logger trace with the delivery note. It is the evidence under Section 616.