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Refrigerated transport association Transfrigoroute UK says that consumers may be killed by food transported at incorrect temperatures unless the industry adopts a widely-recognised international standard for its vehicles.

The ATP certification - Accord des Transports internationaux de denrées Périsables - is a UN standard for the transport of perishable foodstuffs and measures the thermal efficiency of the truck or trailer body and the performance of the fridge unit.

Transfrigoroute  UK says the standard must be made compulsory in this country before someone is killed its members voted for the organisation to campaign on the topic last week.

The move is supported by many of the sector's leading bodybuilders including Trumac and Norfolk-based Somers Refrigeration. "Unless we take action to outlaw poor quality bodywork, it is only a matter of time before food transported at unsafe temperatures makes someone very ill or even kills them," says Somers' MD Stuart Shreeve. "We estimate that up to 60% of the temperature-controlled bodies used in the LCV sector are not fit for purpose."

Richard Marshall, of Cambridge Refrigeration Technology, the organisation responsible for ATP testing and certifying in the UK, told delegates: "ATP measures the thermal efficiency of the body and performance of the refrigeration unit expressed in terms of the K factor. The permitted K factor ranges from 0.7 watts/m² for chill bodies down to 0.4 watts/m² for Class C ATP, for bodies carrying frozen food down to -20°C". Panel van conversions are particularly problematic, he adds.

Although the UK has ratified ATP, it is not incorporated in UK law. As a result, while international operators carrying perishable food must use ATP-certified vehicles, UK operators on domestic deliveries do not. Fruit and vegetables are excluded from ATP, as are multi-compartment bodies.