The archive · Marketing & Growth · Strategic decision · 2023–2024
DP World moves frozen shipping from -18°C to -15°C — Eurobest 2024 B2B Grand Prix
DP World challenges the century-old -18°C frozen-food standard with -15°C; the coalition could save 17.7m tonnes of CO2 yearly — Eurobest 2024 B2B Grand Prix.
DP World
What it had to solve
Frozen food relies on a temperature standard set in the 1930s — -18°C — that no one had seriously challenged, despite the cold chain's huge energy use. DP World needed a credible way to lead logistics toward net zero by 2050 without waiting for new technology.
How it works
For almost a century, frozen food has been stored and shipped at -18°C, a default that traces back to Clarence Birdseye's 1930s cold-storage facilities in the US, which operated at 0°F. DP World's reefer experts noticed the number was inherited rather than scientific: biological spoilage stops at -12°C, so -18°C was a stretch too far, and every unnecessary degree burned energy across the entire cold chain.
In December 2023, at COP28 in Dubai, DP World launched The Move to -15°C: a coalition proposing to reset the frozen-food standard to -15°C, the halfway point between the old standard and the safety threshold. The company shifted its own refrigerated containers and recruited partners across the chain — shipping lines like Maersk, supermarkets like Morrisons and Iceland, and food brands like Nomad Foods (Bird's Eye and Findus) — working with researchers from the University of Birmingham and the International Institute of Refrigeration.
The pitch was deliberately simple: no new technology, no new investment, just a mindset change. Research estimated the shift could save 17.7 million tonnes of CO2 and around 25 terawatt-hours of energy a year while cutting supply-chain costs by 5-12%. Within a year the coalition grew from 11 to more than 30 companies, and in December 2024 the campaign won the Eurobest Creative B2B Grand Prix.
Why it lands
- It reframed the problem: the enemy wasn't cost or technology but a 100-year-old inherited standard nobody had questioned.
- The fix required no new investment, making it a sustainability story any business could adopt.
- Peer-backed research turned opinion into evidence the whole supply chain could sign.
- Framing it as an open coalition — no one owns the idea — turned competitors into partners and gave the campaign scale.
- Plain numbers (17.7m tonnes CO2, 25TWh, 5-12% cost cuts) made a logistics issue newsworthy.
What it did
The coalition grew from 11 to more than 30 members, including Maersk, Morrisons and Iceland; research showed the shift could save 17.7m tonnes of CO2 and about 25TWh of energy a year, and the campaign won the Eurobest 2024 Creative B2B Grand Prix.
What you can take
Challenge inherited standards instead of optimizing within them: resetting a century-old default by three degrees beat any new technology — it was cheap, proven and demanded collaboration.
Since then
By late 2024 The Move to -15°C had grown from 11 founding members to more than 30, including Maersk, Morrisons, Iceland and Nomad Foods, whose Bird's Eye trial cut freezer energy by 10-11% over 12 months without changing texture, taste or nutrition. The campaign collected the Eurobest 2024 Creative B2B Grand Prix and kept pushing for the frozen-food standard to be formally reset, with the coalition continuing to build support across the shipping industry through 2025.
Sources
- Forget Birds Eye's dial, and raise temperatures, says DP World
- DP World: How Three Degrees Could Change Food Supply Chains
- Eurobest announces its Grands Prix, Special Awards and Young Creatives Competition winners for 2024
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