Reefer shipping
Reefer shipping tracking for fresh produce importers
Your forwarder books the reefer and the line moves it. Neither will tell you, unprompted, that the box was rolled to next week’s vessel, that the ETA has slipped five days, or that it has sat at the terminal since Tuesday. Trackberry is the importer’s side of reefer shipping, with every container across your carriers in one list, the paperwork filed against it, and an alert when something changes.
Free while in beta, then €15 a container · No commitment · No card required
- Carriers supported
- 435
- Shipments tracked
- 287
- Built for
- Fresh produce
We track reefer shipping. We don’t sell it.
If you need somebody to move a refrigerated container, you need a carrier or a freight forwarder, and Trackberry is neither. We don’t book space, quote rates or handle cargo. We’re the software a produce importer uses once the booking exists, to follow each reefer from gate-in at origin to empty return and to know what needs doing about it today.
Reefer shipping raises the stakes on events every container goes through. A reefer container carries fruit whose shelf life started before it sailed, and it usually gets less free time and higher daily charges than a dry box. So a rollover costs a week of shelf life, and a box that sits on the quay after discharge burns through its free time and the fruit together.
On temperature, to be exact: Trackberry reads the setpoint off your transport documents. It does not stream readings from the refrigeration unit. That readout, reefer monitoring, comes from the carrier and reports the machine rather than the fruit, and the gap between setpoint and pulp temperature is where most claims are argued. The reefer tracking guide goes through what to watch at each stage of the voyage.
What you get on every reefer
Each of these runs on your containers without anybody opening a carrier portal.
Every reefer in one list, whichever line carries it
435 ocean and air carriers supported. A container or bill of lading number is enough to start. Gate-in, loading, departure, transshipment, discharge, gate-out and empty return arrive as carrier milestones, kept apart from the vessel’s AIS position so you can see when the two disagree.
Rollovers flagged as soon as tracking shows them
When a container is moved to a later ship that departs five or more days after the planned one, you get an alert naming the new vessel and its departure date. A partial roll is caught too, where the rest of a shipment sailed and one box is still waiting at the port of loading.
ETA drift, and arrivals that never came
An alert when the ETA has slipped five days or more from the first one quoted, and another when the ETA has passed and nothing says the box landed. Ripening, trucks and sales are planned around that date, so a slip is a commercial event rather than a data change.
Free time counted per container
Demurrage and detention clocks run from actual discharge, gate-out and empty return, against the free days you set per carrier or per shipment, or that we read off an arrival notice you forward. You get an email two days before demurrage free time ends and again on the last free day, and an alert when a discharged box has sat at the terminal for five days.
The setpoint, as declared on the paperwork
The temperature setpoint and the cargo type, chilled or frozen, are read off the bill of lading and kept on the container. The tracking page you share with a customer shows the setpoint for each box. It is the number somebody asked the unit to hold, not a reading from the unit.
Evidence for a claim, already filed
Bills of lading, packing lists, phytosanitary certificates and arrival inspection reports with per-pallet results sit on the same shipment record as the milestones. When a reefer arrives damaged, the timeline and the paperwork a claim needs are already in one place.
If you’re building a wider cold chain visibility practice, start with what you can prove after the fact. the reefer cargo claims guide covers the evidence that decides a temperature dispute. What all of this costs per container is on the pricing page.
A good fit if
- You import fresh produce in reefers, on more than one carrier.
- Your forwarder books the freight, and you still need to know where each box is without calling anyone.
- A rollover or a box left at the terminal has cost you fruit or a demurrage bill before.
- Your shipment documents arrive by email and somebody files them by hand.
Probably not if
- You need a carrier or forwarder to move refrigerated cargo. We don’t book or move freight.
- You need live reefer temperatures or excursion alerts. We hold the setpoint off the bill of lading, not a feed from the unit.
- You move a handful of reefers a year. The carrier’s own tracking page is enough at that volume.
- You need an on-premise deployment. Trackberry is hosted, and that is not configurable.
Questions buyers ask
- What does it cost?
- Free while we’re in beta, with no card and no commitment. After that €15 per container, billed on containers that ship rather than on seats or a monthly subscription, so a quiet month costs you a quiet month. ERP integration is quoted separately, against the system you already run. All prices exclude VAT.
- Can you book reefer space or quote freight rates?
- No. Trackberry is not a carrier, a forwarder or a booking platform. Your forwarder or the shipping line books the reefer. We follow it from the moment you have a container or bill of lading number, and we read the documents that travel with it.
- Do you show live reefer temperatures?
- No. We show the setpoint declared on the bill of lading, not readings from the refrigeration unit. There is no telematics feed, no temperature history and no excursion alert. If you need the unit’s log for a claim, it comes from the carrier, and our reefer cargo claims guide explains how to ask for it.
- Which reefer carriers can you track?
- 435 ocean and air carriers are supported today. The list is published at /carriers and grows as our providers add lines, so you can check your own carriers before you book a call.
- How soon do I hear about a rollover?
- When the tracking update that shows it arrives. Tracking refreshes several times a day, and the alert goes out in the app, by push and by email, naming the new vessel and its departure date. It sees a roll from the second tracking update onward, so a roll made before we first read the booking is not flagged, and it detects rolls rather than predicting them.
- What do you need from us to start?
- Container or bill of lading numbers, and a mailbox that forwards shipment documents to us. No carrier logins, no data migration and nothing for your suppliers to install. Free-time alerts need your free days per carrier, which you can enter once or let us read off the arrival notices you forward.
See your own reefers in it
Twenty minutes and a few container numbers. You’ll see the milestones, any rollover and the free-time clock on reefers you already have on the water, not on a demo dataset.