Here are ten practical tips when shipping food items to ensure that they arrive fresh and in the best delectable condition.
1. Use your common sense. Never mail highly-perishable food items such as soft cheeses or meats without packing them with ice packs or dry ice. Processed meats such as sausages and hard aged cheeses will be fine even without ice packs. Firm baked goods are best, such as cookies, candies, flavored nuts, fudge, bread, unfrosted cakes, and muffins, chutneys, and preserves.
2. Make sure to tightly seal bottled and canned items and use thick containers that won’t break easily.
3. Is shipping a combination of moist and dry baked goods, Wrap them separately to preserve their textures.
4. Unfrosted cakes are best packed snugly into tins. When shipping brownies, lemons squares and other homemade goodies, place them in individual bonbon cups or papers, layered and separated with waxed, parchment, or butcher’s paper. As much as possible, leave no headroom in the container. If necessary, fill unused space with crumpled wax paper.
5. Sturdy baked goods like pound cakes and loaf breads can be baked and shipped in disposable foil pans after being sealed in plastic wrap.
6. Extra precautions should be made when shipping fragile bottles of oils or vinegars. Aside from making sure that they won’t leak and break, wrap individual bottles with bubble wrap then place inside a plastic Ziploc bag. Leave the bag full of air for added cushioning.
7. After all your food items are individually and tightly sealed, place them into a sturdy carton for shipping. You can use popped corn, crumpled up newspaper, bubble-wrap, Styrofoam or packing peanuts as packaging materials especially when shipping food in glass containers.
8. Place heavier items at the bottom of the shipping box. Allow ample space between each item for packaging materials. These will cushion the items during transit. Gently shake the box down to be sure there is no headspace left unpacked so the contents will not shift.
9. Address and label your package using a waterproof marker. Stick the address and labels using clear packing tape to prevent getting smeared and destroyed in case the package is exposed to moisture or rain.
10. Choose the fastest method possible when shipping food items.