Shipping, cold chain and handling

This is the honest fact that shapes everything else on this page, and the industry reference case makes it concrete. MatTek, which is the established example of centralised living-tissue manufacture with a working cold chain, ships its reconstructed human tissue models at four degrees on medium-supplemented agarose gels, produced in lots against a fixed weekly cadence: shipped Monday, delivered Tuesday morning by priority courier, with a four-day shelf life including transit.

Read that last clause carefully, because it is where projects fail. The shelf life is not four days from arrival. Transit is inside the window. A shipment that leaves on Monday and arrives Tuesday morning has already spent a meaningful fraction of its life in a box, and what remains is what you have to run your experiment in. A courier delay of twenty-four hours does not shorten a long window; it removes a quarter of a short one.

Different material has different windows. Cryopreserved cells in vapour-phase nitrogen are stable for as long as the shipper holds temperature, typically a week or more. Frozen material on dry ice is stable until the dry ice sublimates, which is measured in days and depends on the box. Live cultures and living tissue constructs are at the other extreme and are measured in days from production. The specific window for your line is stated on the quotation, and if it is not stated, ask before you order.

The format is stated on the quotation. If you need a different one — a dry shipper instead of dry ice, because your dock cannot guarantee same-day collection — say so at quotation stage. It usually costs more and it is usually worth it.

Living material does not ship on demand. It ships on a cadence that is set by production and by the courier calendar, and the two together create narrow windows.

• Production cadence. Suppliers of living tissue typically produce in lots on a fixed schedule and ship on fixed days. Miss the cut-off and the next opportunity is the following cycle, which may be a week away. We state the cadence and the cut-off on the quotation.
• Day-of-week constraints. Living and refrigerated material generally ships early in the week so that it does not sit in a depot over a weekend. Shipments are not usually dispatched on a Thursday or Friday for that reason, and a public holiday at either end of the route removes a shipping day.
• Delivery window, not delivery date. Cold-chain shipments go by priority courier with a delivery commitment, often before a stated morning hour. Somebody has to be there. A shipment refused at the door because reception was closed is treated as a delivery for risk purposes, and the material will usually not survive a redelivery.
• Geography constrains format. Live culture shipping works over short, direct routes. Across a long-haul route with a customs stop, live shipping is often simply not available and cryopreserved is the only honest option. We will tell you that rather than quote a route we do not believe in.

We confirm the dispatch date and the expected delivery window in writing before shipment, and we send tracking. Delivery dates are estimates unless the quotation calls a date committed. Where a permit is outstanding we hold the shipment, which is covered at export control, import permits and biosecurity.

Where the quotation says a shipment is temperature-logged, it contains a monitoring device and you get the record. Two different things travel under that heading and it matters which you have.

• An indicator is a single-use device that changes state irreversibly if a threshold is crossed. It tells you that an excursion happened. It does not tell you how long or how far.
• A logger records temperature against time for the whole journey and produces a downloadable trace. It tells you when the excursion happened, how deep it went, and how long it lasted — which is what actually determines whether the material is still usable.

Logging is not universal in this market and we will not imply that it is. Some suppliers include it as standard, some offer it as a line item, and some do not offer it at all. The quotation states which. If the material is valuable enough or the route long enough that you would want a trace in a dispute, ask for a logger at quotation stage — retro-fitting evidence after a failed delivery is impossible.

Where a logger is present, read it on arrival. Where an indicator has tripped, photograph it before you do anything else. Both are part of the inspection in clause 6, and both are the difference between a claim that succeeds and a claim that becomes an argument.

The quote form asks what your facility can actually receive, and the answer is load-bearing rather than administrative. Before a cold-chain order, confirm that you have:

• a receiving point that will accept dry ice or a dry shipper — some buildings and mail rooms prohibit both outright, and finding that out on the delivery morning is expensive;
• a person available in the delivery window who knows the shipment is coming, with a named backup;
• a ventilated area to open the shipment, cryogenic gloves and eye protection;
• storage at the required temperature, available immediately — a minus-80 freezer with space in it, a nitrogen store, a fridge, or a prepared incubator;
• the institutional approvals and containment appropriate to the material, per research use only;
• the import permit, where one applies.

Tell us if any of these are absent. Some are workable around — a different format, a held shipment, a scheduled delivery date — but only before dispatch.

Risk passes on delivery. From that moment the condition of the material is in your hands, and a claim depends almost entirely on what you record in the first few minutes.

Inspect immediately on arrival, and in any event within twenty-four hours of delivery, before the material is used, thawed beyond a viability check, or discarded. Do not throw the packaging away.

The inspection, in order:

1. Photograph the outer box before opening, including any damage and the courier labels.
2. Record the arrival time against the expected delivery window.
3. Check the refrigerant. Is dry ice still present, and roughly how much? Is the dry shipper still cold? A box with no dry ice remaining is a failure whatever the contents look like.
4. Read and photograph any temperature indicator or logger before removing it from the box.
5. Check the packaging integrity — seals, secondary containment, breakage, leakage, and whether vials are still in their holder.
6. Check the contents against the packing list: line, lot, quantity, format.
7. Photograph the material in situ before transferring it to storage.
8. Transfer to the required storage condition immediately. Do not leave it on a bench while you write an email.
9. Tell us within twenty-four hours if anything is wrong, at quotes@wetwareworld.com, with the order reference and the photographs attached.

If the shipment looks compromised, tell us before you thaw. A vial that is discarded, or thawed and cultured, cannot be assessed afterwards, and a supplier or courier will decline a claim on material that no longer exists. Photographs taken on arrival are the entire evidentiary basis of a claim.

Where you do not inspect within the window, we will still try to help, but our ability to recover anything from the supplier or the courier falls away quickly. Courier claim windows in particular are short and are not extendable by us.

What we do, by failure mode. In every case, tell us as soon as you know.

Where a delivery fails and it is not attributable to your facility, our remedy is, at our option and after discussion with you: replacement on the next available production and shipping cadence, re-performance of the service, or a refund of the amount paid for the affected line.

Replacement is bounded by the cadence, not by our willingness. If a supplier produces living tissue in weekly lots, the earliest replacement is the next lot. We cannot compress a production cycle and we will not promise a date we do not control.

The honest limit, restated from terms of service, clause 12: we cannot compensate you for the consequences of a failed delivery. Not the instrument time you booked, not the animal cohort you timed to the arrival, not the operator's week, not the grant milestone, not the conference deadline. Our liability is limited to the value of the affected line. No supplier or intermediary in this market offers more, and one that says otherwise has not read their own supplier contracts.

This is precisely why the cadence and the shelf life are stated at quotation stage rather than buried. The mitigation available to you is scheduling, not compensation: build slack around the delivery, keep a fallback for the instrument slot, and do not let a single cold-chain arrival be the only thing standing between you and a deadline.

• Biological material cannot be returned to stock once it has left controlled conditions. We cannot accept a return of cells, tissue or media because a project changed. This is a property of the material, not a commercial policy.
• Dry shippers are returnable assets with a return deadline stated on the paperwork. Return them promptly using the supplied documentation. Late returns, damage and loss are chargeable, and the charges are real — a dry shipper is expensive equipment.
• Do not return material without asking. Shipping biological material back is itself a regulated shipment with its own dangerous goods and permit requirements, and an improvised return can create a compliance problem worse than the original issue.
• Packaging disposal follows your institutional waste route. Dry ice should be allowed to sublimate in a ventilated space, never in a sealed container and never down a sink.
• Unopened ambient goods — devices, substrates, consumables — may be returnable subject to the supplier's terms. Ask before shipping anything back.

Cold-chain freight is a material fraction of the delivered cost of living material, and on small orders it can exceed the cost of the material itself. That is not a markup; it is what priority courier, dangerous goods handling, validated packaging and a returnable dry shipper actually cost.

Freight, cold-chain consumables and any dry shipper hire are stated on the quotation, either itemised or explicitly named as excluded. Duties, import taxes, customs brokerage and inspection charges in your country are yours, and we flag them where we know them to apply.

Two things that genuinely reduce the cost, offered because they are true rather than because they suit us: consolidate orders so that one shipment carries several lines, and accept cryopreserved format where your protocol allows it. Live and refrigerated shipping costs more, constrains geography, and carries far more delivery risk than cryopreserved material in a dry shipper.

Questions about a shipment in progress: quotes@wetwareworld.com with the order reference. Anything else: hello@wetwareworld.com.