'My frozen food arrived completely thawed': Dawn delivery services battle record heat

A delivery worker makes rounds at an apartment complex amid a heat wave. [Newsis]

South Korea's e-commerce industry is waging a war against the heat. Record-breaking temperatures across the country have put fresh and frozen food deliveries on high alert.

Maintaining freshness during dawn deliveries has emerged as the top priority for the industry, according to sources Wednesday. Nights with temperatures exceeding 30 degrees Celsius — what meteorologists call a "super tropical night" — have caused products delivered overnight to thaw or deform. Dawn delivery services handle a large share of orders for fresh and frozen food needed the following day, and fierce competition among major players has made customer retention a central concern.

Complaints from affected customers are mounting. A woman in her 30s surnamed Baek, raising young children in Seongdong-gu, Seoul, said she ordered beef for her baby's food via dawn delivery over the weekend, only to find it fully thawed on arrival. "The ice pack had melted and the entire box was soaked," she said. Online communities have seen a wave of similar posts in recent days, with users writing that dry ice packs were "completely empty by morning," that mandu had thawed, that frozen squid arrived as if it were fresh, and that ice cream was delivered entirely melted.

Companies are throwing everything at the problem to maintain delivery quality. Coupang Inc has increased the amount of dry ice per cooling pack and is adding ice packs based on the day's temperature. Kurly has also boosted its dry ice and ice packs. A Kurly official said the company uses silver bubble-wrap pouches when cooling agents run temporarily short. "The purple box maintains refrigeration for 12 hours and freezing capacity for 11 hours," the official said.

SSG.com has more than doubled its cooling agents depending on delivery type and time slot. A company official said daytime deliveries from its dedicated online fulfillment center, known as "Neo," use additional insulated inner boxes given the relatively longer delivery distances. The company has also cut the operational shelf life of freshness-sensitive vegetables by up to 50 percent compared with normal periods.

The industry expects cooling-related costs to keep rising as heat waves intensify each year. Concerns were raised this year about dry ice supply instability linked to the conflict in the Middle East. "There are no major supply issues with dry ice at the moment, but prices have risen significantly — that is a fact," an industry official said.

To manage growing demand, major companies are moving directly into the supply chain. Coupang Inc produces a portion of its dry ice in-house. Kurly took an equity stake in dry ice equipment manufacturer Bigtex in 2021.

A Coupang Inc employee packs orders for the company's dawn delivery service, Rocket Fresh. This image is unrelated to the article. [Provided by Coupang Inc]

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