September 18, 2025
Walk into any store in America and grab a drink from the cold box. Now ask yourself this:
Is it actually cold?
Chances are, it was, but it might not be anymore. Maybe someone grabbed it 30 minutes ago, walked around with it, changed their mind, and put it back warm. Maybe it came out of a hot backroom. Maybe it rode in a truck that felt like an oven.
We have all done it. We have all seen it. But here’s the problem: we have never measured it
I have worked in category management long enough to know cold placement is retail’s most prized battleground. Cold space is expensive. Suppliers fight to get in. Retailers defend it like beachfront property. But here is the cold truth:
Nobody actually knows if cold products are being sold cold
That blind spot has real consequences:
• Lost sales from lukewarm first impressions
• Wasted marketing dollars on “refreshing” campaigns that don’t deliver
• Cold chain investments with no proof of performance
• Spoilage, health risks, and regulatory exposure in perishables
For decades, retail just assumed cold meant cold. But assumptions do not protect margins.
The only products that consistently get visibility are those that must be cold by law, such as meat, milk, and frozen. Everything else runs on vibes and guesswork. Sure, your energy drink might be placed cold, but was it sold cold? That is a very different question.
Once a product leaves the cooler, the chain is broken. Shoppers toss drinks into hot carts, let them sit while browsing, and sometimes leave them in a 100-degree trunk. If they are not consuming it immediately, was the cold placement even worth it?
Suppliers should be asking:
• Is my product being sold cold?
• If I am paying for cooler space, is it earning its keep?
• Could I win space from brands that are not moving cold volume?
If I were on the supplier side, I would want proof that every dollar I spent securing cold box space was working. I would want data to defend my facings, or to justify pulling them and investing smarter elsewhere.
Retailers spend millions on cold box installations, electricity, and planogram designs. Yet the actual execution is built on blind trust. Until now, there has been no way to prove whether a product left the store cold.
Why has this not been solved already? Lack of technology. Or maybe because “that’s just how it has always been.” Honestly, I ask myself every day how I am the first one to do it. It feels like it should have existed already. But it did not. So I built it.
If someone calls this a nice-to-have, I would ask one thing:
Is everything you buy for your business a must-have?
If you only get to pick a few extras, wouldn’t you want the one that tells you exactly what is happening in your most valuable shelf space? Wouldn’t you want cold truth at checkout?
This is not about temperature. It is about visibility, execution, and proof. And now, for the first time ever, you can finally get it.