Core temperature is the temperature measured at the thermal centre of a food product rather than in the surrounding air, and is the legally relevant measure for verifying that quick-frozen foods have remained adequately frozen throughout storage and transport.
In trade practice
Measuring core temperature requires inserting a calibrated probe into the product mass, which is destructive and therefore done on a sample basis at intake or during audits. For quick-frozen goods, EU legislation on quick-frozen foodstuffs sets the requirements that apply; air temperature readings from reefer controllers are not a substitute. Logistics and QA teams must distinguish between air-temperature excursions, which may be brief and recoverable, and genuine product core-temperature rises, which indicate actual quality risk. Buyers increasingly require core-temperature checks at goods-in as a condition of acceptance.
In a specification
A frozen-product specification or intake procedure states that core temperature must be verified by probe measurement on a defined sample size, with the result recorded on the goods-received note.