DP World rechecked the frozen-food standard and found three free degrees

Global cold-chain logistics has shipped and stored frozen food at -18°C since the mechanical refrigeration era began roughly a century ago, a figure so deeply embedded in industry practice and regulation that it functioned as an unquestioned constant rather than a live engineering decision. No single company controls this standard, and no one in the current industry had a clear record of the original research that set it, or whether colder-than-necessary storage was quietly costing the entire supply chain energy and money for no food-safety benefit.

DP World, a Dubai-based global logistics operator, and its agency Edelman set out to test whether the number itself deserved scrutiny rather than assuming it was correct because it was universal. They commissioned an independent scientific panel to examine whether -18°C was still the right target, or whether it was simply the number everyone had inherited without anyone re-checking it.

Re-derived the frozen-food standard, finding -15°C as safe as -18°C, then published and built a coalition to adopt the warmer, cheaper temperature industry-wide.

The standard was inherited, not re-checked, so no one could defend it on merits.

An independent panel gave the re-derivation credibility and authority.

Publishing openly let competitors adopt the change, multiplying the impact.

The fix required no new infrastructure, just running refrigeration warmer.

When a long-standing operational parameter can't be traced to its original justification, re-derive it from scratch instead of defending it by tradition.

Within days of the research becoming public, roughly 60% of the global shipping container industry had joined the Move to Minus 15 coalition, eventually including 24 major companies. 8 million cars) and save about 25 terawatt-hours of energy, while cutting supply-chain costs an estimated 5-7% — a change that cost nothing to implement once the finding was published. The campaign won the Titanium Grand Prix at Cannes Lions 2024, one of only around 80 Titanium Lions awarded since the category began 21 years earlier, and made Edelman the first traditional PR firm to win one.