Julie Hanson, Global Cold Chain Alliance (GCCA) Director for Europe, reports from the 28th European Cold Chain Conference which took place in Copenhagen in March 2025.
Europe’s temperature-controlled logistics industry is changing fast. In addition to the advent of new technologies, regulatory changes and evolving customer requirements, in 2025 and over the coming years we can also expect significant implications resulting from shifting trade and policy landscape.
Assessing and discussing these changes as an industry is crucial to the continued efficiency, growth and resilience of the cold chain in Europe. GCCA was delighted to bring together an outstanding roster of expert speakers and cold chain leaders from across Europe to explore our industry’s burning issues in March 2025.
Around 200 cold chain professionals gathered at our 28th European Cold Chain Conference, this year in Copenhagen, for three days of discussion and knowledge share about the major challenges and opportunities that temperature-controlled logistics operators throughout Europe are experiencing now and can expect in the months and years ahead. The conference sessions explored market developments in Europe’s cold chain, trends in the food industry and the latest temperature-controlled logistics innovations, with topics ranging from energy and recruitment to AI and consumer behaviour. Here is my report on a selection of the conference sessions.
The Implications of Changes in Global Trade Policy
The conference’s keynote speech was delivered by John Clarke, former Director for International Relations at DG Agri and the Chief Negotiator for Agriculture in the European Commission until the end of 2023. He led a fascinating and insightful keynote session discussing the future direction of global trade policy. He emphasised how it is hard to overstate the implications of recent trade actions by the United States for general confidence in the multilateral trading system.
John outlined how EU trade policy is adapting from a global trade model dominated by a shared global commitment to seeking freer trade, policed by the World Trade Organisation to a more fractured model of a focus on protectionism, strategic autonomy, and characterised by governments taking unilateral action and negotiating bilateral deals. He stressed the twin pressures of reacting to a more transactional global environment and the political pressure on the EU to protect its market from unfair competition.
The audience was invited to reflect on how much the shock and awe of the early days of the new Trump administration would impact on the short, medium and long term of cold chain trade flows. There was a strong sense that something had fundamentally shifted in attitudes to global trade, but that some of the fundamentals of the European Union’s approach remained unchanged. The EU’s approach to food trade has long been quite protectionist in outlook.
John Clarke pointed to key sectors such as beef, sheep meat, poultry, sugar and honey where the priority has been to protect the market from products made to perceived lower standards, and to the ongoing commitments in the EU Commission’s Vision for Agriculture to using trade negotiations to secure commitments to mirror the EU’s regulatory model for environmental protection and animal welfare.
Delegates were left in no doubt that the world is entering a new and unpredictable era for global trade where economic and national security increasingly drives trade policy, with increasingly weak multilateral institutions, and shifting alliances. The closing reflections from the session focused on how cold chain businesses can respond to these macro shifts.
We were left reassured that in a world of uncertainty, professional, responsive and agile logistics companies can prove their value. Whilst short-term disruptions are inevitable from tariff standoffs, this placed greater value on resilience within the end-to-end supply chain. There is no doubt that the businesses that are the most aware of developments, quick to anticipate shifts in trade flows within and between markets and, above all, prove themselves to be reliable partnerships are most likely to succeed. The session from John was an extremely informative deep dive into the shifting global trade situation and the likely impacts on Europe’s food logistics.
To read the entire article, please access your complimentary e-copy of Frozen Food Europe May-June, 2025 issue here.