“Cold Chain” has been used by the food, pharmaceutical, and logistics industries for decades. It is generally considered how perishable products are shipped and stored safely from the manufacturing party to the final stop at the distribution point.

All these perishable goods we often take for granted are made possible by these logistical considerations. Links in the cold chain include the product’s point of origin, the transportation of the product, and, last, the product’s destination. While logistics often vary, this can mean utilizing enormous cold storage warehouses, refrigerated trucks, and keeping products cold where they are being sold. When hoping to produce top-shelf, high-quality cannabis extracts, the cold chain is imperative for conserving terpenes/terpenoids and cannabinoids from the grow/harvest – to the end user.

When high-quality, well-grown cannabis is frozen and appropriately handled through the cold chain, cannabis laboratories can make products unmatched by their more ‘crude’ oil counterparts. Degradation occurs each instance the cold chain is broken. When the cold chain is not adequately adhered to, compounds are not preserved, resulting in SKUs that will not comprise the complexity first realized in the grow from which they came. Cold chain adherence means maintaining below-freezing temps for the cannabinoids and terpenes freezing from beginning to end. Ideally, the biomass will be a few degrees or even far below 32°F. This involves clear communication, cooperation, and mutual agreements amongst multiple parties, typically across numerous licensed cannabis organizations. 

A study on preserving cannabinoids detected that simple refrigeration for long-term storage is inadequate. This research was conducted over four years to determine the degradation of THC and CBN in different environments.