Spoiled and counterfeit cargo: when the cold chain and provenance fail

The new target: cargo that has to stay cold

In 2026, cargo theft is no longer just about trucks stopped at rest areas. Travelers and Food Logistics warn that refrigerated cargo — pharma, food and biological products — is now a priority target: it is valuable, perishable, and if the cold chain breaks, it spoils before arrival. A pallet of vaccines or fresh product can be lost to a temperature breach or an undetected diversion.

For the food chain, the answer is to make origin visible: solutions like FoodSteps show how each food item can be traced from farm to fork, with temperature recorded at every step (https://foodsteps.pt/).

Origin fraud: the other side of the loss

In parallel, authorities seize record volumes of counterfeit goods. Europol seized fake food and drinks; in Portugal, more than 1,400 counterfeit articles were intercepted in Algarve parcels and the country confiscated 1.2 million counterfeit products in a year. Lost revenue for brands, risk for consumers — and a clear signal: when origin is not proven, the fake enters the chain as if legitimate.

Why proof of origin changes the game

Theft and counterfeiting share the same root cause: cargo blindness. If no one can prove where a product came from, whether it stayed at the right temperature and whether it was tampered with, the thief and the forger win. The answer is not just physical security — it is information.

From theft to recovery: real-time visibility

With IoT trackers and a blockchain record, cargo 'sees and speaks': it reports position, temperature and openings in real time. A route deviation or a cold-chain breach triggers an alert before the damage; after the theft, the tamper-proof history speeds recovery. In the new high-value logistics game, to see is to protect.