🧊 Cold room

A cold room is a large chilled room at a factory, a depot or a shop that you can walk into and wheel trolleys and pallets of goods into. Milk, kefir, cottage cheese and cheese need a room kept at a low temperature above zero. Ice cream and long-term storage need a freezer room, held at about −18 °C.

A cold room is a link in the cold chain — unbroken cold from producer to buyer. For milk, the chain starts on the farm: under EU rules, raw milk is cooled after milking to 8 °C if it is collected daily, and to 6 °C if it is collected less often. If the chain breaks, even briefly, the product may spoil before its date.

A storekeeper looks after the cold room. They check the temperature, arrange the goods so that cold air can circulate freely, and keep the doors open no longer than necessary. An overfilled cold room cools less well.

Cold is not only for milk. Wineries chill wine so that crystals of tartaric acid salts, known as tartar, drop out of it; the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) permits this practice, and the crystals are then separated. Opened table olives are also kept cold, as directed on the label.

Why it matters to you. Cold does not kill bacteria; it only slows their multiplication, and listeria can multiply even in a fridge. So at home, too, keep your fridge at 4 °C or below, check it with a separate thermometer and do not overfill the shelves.