The Interoperability Problem: Cold Chain IoT Standardization in South Africa

Picture this. You’re a cold chain logistics operator in Gauteng running temperature-controlled deliveries for three major clients. Retailer A requires you to use Platform X for real-time temperature monitoring. Retailer B mandates Platform Y — different hardware, different dashboard, different subscription. And your PPECB export documentation? That needs manual data extraction from both systems because neither exports in a format the other can read.

Three dashboards open on your screen. Three monthly subscription invoices. Three sets of hardware installed across your fleet. Zero interoperability between them.

This is not a hypothetical scenario. This is Tuesday for a growing number of South African cold chain operators.

The monitoring technology works. The sensors are accurate. The dashboards are often excellent. But when you step back and look at the industry as a whole, what you see is not a connected cold chain — it’s a collection of proprietary data silos that happen to measure temperature.

At ColdChainSA, we’ve built this platform on the back of over eight years operating The Frozen Food Courier across thousands of kilometres of refrigerated transport in Gauteng and the Western Cape. We’ve lived with multiple monitoring systems, seen hardware generations that refuse to talk to each other, and watched the industry invest heavily in sensors while largely ignoring the question of whether those sensors can share data in any meaningful way.

The cold chain doesn’t have a technology problem. It has an interoperability problem. And the standards to solve it either already exist or are actively being developed. South African operators who understand this landscape now will be positioned for the shift when it comes.

The Current State: Proprietary Ecosystems Everywhere

The global IoT cold chain monitoring market is booming. According to Future Market Insights, the market was valued at approximately USD 8 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach USD 29.6 billion by 2035 — a compound annual growth rate of 13.9%. Hardware — sensors, data loggers, RFID devices — dominates the market, accounting for roughly 46.8% of total revenue.

That growth is impressive. But growth without standardization creates fragmentation. And fragmentation is exactly what South African operators are experiencing.

The pattern is consistent across the industry. A sensor manufacturer builds proprietary hardware. That hardware connects to a proprietary cloud platform. The platform generates proprietary reports in proprietary formats. The operator buys in, and the data lives inside that vendor’s ecosystem permanently. Switching providers means replacing hardware, retraining staff, migrating historical data (if that’s even possible), and starting over.

This isn’t unique to South Africa. It’s how most IoT markets develop early on — vendors compete on features and lock-in rather than on interoperability and open data. But the consequences are particularly acute for SA operators dealing with multiple compliance frameworks simultaneously.

Consider the regulatory landscape. Major retailers operating through the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa (CGCSA) each maintain supplier codes of practice with different monitoring requirements. The Perishable Products Export Control Board (PPECB) requires temperature records for export certification but doesn’t specify a data format — leading to manual extraction and PDF printouts from whatever monitoring system the operator happens to use. SAHPRA’s Good Distribution Practice requirements for pharmaceutical cold chain mandate SANAS-calibrated sensors and continuous monitoring but remain technology-agnostic on platforms.

Every requirement is reasonable in isolation. Together, they create a compliance environment where operators are forced to maintain multiple parallel monitoring systems with no way to consolidate data across them.

The vendor lock-in problem compounds over time. When you’ve been running refrigerated transport for eight-plus years, you accumulate monitoring hardware from multiple generations. The 2018 data logger doesn’t communicate with the 2023 cloud platform. The fleet GPS tracker gives you location and temperature data but exports it in a completely different format to the cold room monitoring sensors. The pharmaceutical client’s required monitoring system produces reports that look nothing like the food distribution client’s required format. Sound familiar?

The Communication Protocol Landscape

Before diving into standards, it’s worth understanding the communication layer briefly:

Cellular (2G/3G/4G/5G) remains dominant in SA fleet monitoring — wide coverage and reliable, but higher cost per device. NB-IoT (Narrowband IoT) is growing in warehouse and cold room monitoring — good building penetration and lower power consumption. LoRaWAN offers long range and low power but requires gateway infrastructure that has limited deployment across South Africa. Bluetooth/BLE covers short-range, low-cost applications in last-mile delivery and small facilities.

Each protocol has different data transmission characteristics. But here’s the critical point: the communication protocol is not actually the core problem. Whether your sensor sends data via cellular, NB-IoT, or Bluetooth, the data arrives at a cloud platform. The real interoperability challenge is what happens to that data after it arrives — how it’s structured, how it’s stored, how it’s shared, and whether anyone outside that specific vendor’s ecosystem can read it.

What Standards Actually Exist Today

The good news is that the industry isn’t starting from zero. Significant standardization work has been completed, and more is underway. The challenge is awareness and adoption — particularly in South Africa, where most operators don’t yet know these standards exist.

GS1 EPCIS 2.0: The Closest Thing to a Universal Data Language

The most significant development in supply chain data standardization is EPCIS 2.0, ratified by GS1 in June 2022 and subsequently adopted as an ISO/IEC standard.

EPCIS stands for Electronic Product Code Information Services. It’s not a sensor standard — it doesn’t tell manufacturers how to build hardware. It’s a data exchange standard. It defines a common language for describing supply chain events, answering five fundamental questions: what happened, when it happened, where it happened, why it happened, and — critically for cold chain — how it happened.

That last dimension — the “how” — is what makes EPCIS 2.0 transformative for cold chain operators. Version 2.0 introduced the sensorElementList, a data structure specifically designed to attach sensor readings — temperature, humidity, light levels — to supply chain events. For the first time, there’s a global standard that says: “Here is how you record the fact that a shipment was at 4.2°C when it arrived at the distribution centre at 14:32 on Tuesday.”

The technical architecture is modern and developer-friendly. EPCIS 2.0 uses JSON-LD payloads — the same format used across most modern web applications — with REST APIs for data capture and query. This is a significant departure from the original EPCIS 1.0 standard, which relied on XML web services that were considerably more complex to implement. The move to JSON and REST APIs dramatically lowers the barrier for software developers building integrations.

The companion standard, the Core Business Vocabulary (CBV) 2.0, provides standardized terminology for describing business processes — shipping, receiving, storing, transporting — so that when two different systems exchange EPCIS events, they mean the same thing by the same terms.

Real-world deployment is already happening. The Australian Table Grapes Association (ATGA) ran a major traceability pilot using EPCIS 2.0 combined with GS1 Digital Link QR codes. More than 840,000 units of table grapes were labelled with unique serialized QR codes, with supply chain events — including temperature logging — captured as EPCIS events and made accessible to everyone from farmer to consumer across 15 export markets in the Asia Pacific region.

What does this mean for South Africa? GS1 South Africa is an active member organization. EPCIS 2.0 could potentially align PPECB export documentation, retailer monitoring requirements, and cross-border verification into a single data framework. Instead of each retailer requiring their own monitoring system, they could require EPCIS-compatible data — and operators could use any EPCIS-compatible monitoring platform they choose.

The important limitation: EPCIS standardizes the language, not the hardware. Your sensor still needs to output data that can be mapped to EPCIS events. EPCIS doesn’t replace your monitoring platform — it gives monitoring platforms a common format for exchanging data with each other and with downstream systems.

ISO/IEC Framework Standards

Behind EPCIS sits a broader framework of international IoT standards developed by ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1, Subcommittee 41 (JTC 1/SC 41) — the main international body for IoT and digital twin standardization.

Key standards include:

ISO/IEC 21823 series — addresses IoT interoperability across multiple facets: transport (how data moves), semantic (what data means), syntactic (how data is structured), behavioural (how systems respond), and policy (governance rules).
ISO/IEC 30141 — the IoT reference architecture, providing the structural blueprint for how IoT systems should be designed.
ISO/IEC 30162 — compatibility requirements for industrial IoT devices.
ISO/IEC 27400 — IoT security and privacy guidelines.

These are foundational framework standards — not cold-chain-specific. Think of them as the building code, not the house. They define the principles and structures that cold chain-specific standards (like EPCIS 2.0’s sensor capabilities) build upon. Their importance lies in ensuring that when cold chain IoT standards are developed or refined, they align with the broader international IoT architecture rather than existing in isolation.

South Africa’s Standards Infrastructure: Strong Foundations, Missing Connections

South Africa has credible standards infrastructure for cold chain monitoring. The problem is that the pieces haven’t been connected.

SANAS (South African National Accreditation System) provides accreditation for sensor calibration under ISO/IEC 17025. This is well-established and widely respected. When a pharmaceutical cold chain requires calibrated temperature sensors, SANAS provides the accreditation framework. Calibration is standardized. Data exchange is not.
R638 Regulations (Regulations Governing General Hygiene Requirements for Food Premises, the Transport of Food, and Related Matters) require temperature monitoring for food transport and storage. The regulations specify temperature requirements by food category — but they don’t specify data format, communication protocol, or system interoperability. An operator can comply with R638 using a paper log, a USB data logger, or a real-time IoT platform. The regulation cares about the temperature being correct, not about whether the data can be shared digitally.
SAHPRA GDP requirements for pharmaceutical cold chain mandate continuous monitoring and SANAS-calibrated sensors. Again, the requirements are technology-agnostic on platforms — they care about the monitoring happening and being documented, not about what format the documentation takes.

The gap is clear. South Africa has calibration standards (SANAS), regulatory requirements (R638, GDP), and a global data exchange standard (EPCIS 2.0) — but nobody has connected them into a coherent IoT certification framework for cold chain monitoring. There’s no single standard that says: “Your monitoring system must use SANAS-calibrated sensors AND export data in EPCIS 2.0 format AND communicate via approved protocols.” Each piece exists independently, and operators are left to navigate the disconnected landscape on their own.

Why This Matters Now: The Forcing Functions

The interoperability problem has existed for years. So why is urgency building now? Three converging pressures are making standardized data exchange a business necessity rather than a theoretical improvement.

Export Market Access

The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), formally adopted in June 2023, has experienced multiple delays but is now set to apply from 30 December 2026 for large and medium operators, with micro and small operators given until 30 June 2027.

While the EUDR directly targets specific commodities — cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soya, and wood — the traceability infrastructure it demands will raise the bar for all EU-bound exports. The regulation requires due diligence statements backed by geolocation data, supply chain documentation, and risk assessments. This level of traceability is impossible to achieve at scale using proprietary, disconnected monitoring systems and PDF exports.

South Africa exports over R85 billion in temperature-sensitive goods annually, with the EU and UK among its major markets. The PPECB already requires temperature records for perishable exports, but the gap between “temperature records exist somewhere in a proprietary platform” and “standardized digital temperature records that can be verified by import authorities” is substantial.

Beyond the EUDR, the EU Digital Product Passport requirements are emerging — regulations that will eventually require standardized environmental condition data throughout supply chains for products sold in the EU market. The direction of travel is clear: paper records and proprietary data exports will not meet future EU market access requirements.

SADC Cross-Border Verification

Closer to home, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is creating demand for trusted documentation across borders where regulatory frameworks differ significantly.

Currently, cross-border cold chain documentation between South Africa and its SADC neighbours — Mozambique, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe — is largely manual. Temperature records don’t follow standardized formats. A cold chain shipment from Johannesburg to Maputo may have excellent real-time monitoring throughout the South African leg, but that data exists in a proprietary platform that Mozambican authorities cannot access or verify.

SADC cold chain standards have been proposed but not yet formalized. The Federation of East and Southern African Road Transport Associations (FESARTA) is actively working on cross-border transport facilitation. Standardized IoT data — shared in a common format like EPCIS — could enable digital verification at border crossings, reducing delays, reducing documentation disputes, and reducing losses from cold chain breaks during extended border waiting times.

Retailer and Supply Chain Pressure

Domestically, the Consumer Goods Council of South Africa (CGCSA) continues pushing for greater supplier transparency and supply chain visibility. Major retailers are moving incrementally toward real-time monitoring requirements — and each retailer’s specific requirements add another layer of compliance complexity for operators serving multiple customers.

The fundamental dynamic is straightforward: the retailer with the most stringent monitoring requirements sets the floor for everyone in their supply chain. When that retailer requires Platform X, every supplier must adopt Platform X — regardless of what Platforms Y and Z they’re already running for other clients. In an interoperable world, the retailer could require EPCIS-compatible data, and the operator could deliver it from whichever platform they choose.

What’s Coming: The Path to Interoperability

Based on current standards development, technology trends, and regulatory direction, here’s a realistic timeline for how cold chain IoT interoperability is likely to evolve.

Near-Term (1–2 Years)

EPCIS 2.0 adoption by major technology providers is already underway globally. Sensor platforms are beginning to offer EPCIS-compatible data export as a feature. As EUDR and Digital Product Passport requirements approach enforcement, this adoption will accelerate among platforms serving export-oriented supply chains.
OpenEPCIS — a fully open-source EPCIS 2.0 implementation — is lowering barriers for smaller technology companies that want to offer standards-compatible data exchange without building an EPCIS implementation from scratch. This is significant because it means interoperability doesn’t require every sensor manufacturer to independently implement the standard. Open-source building blocks make it faster and cheaper.
Cloud platform API convergence is happening organically even without formal EPCIS adoption. As more monitoring platforms adopt REST APIs and JSON data formats — the same technologies EPCIS 2.0 uses — the technical distance between proprietary and standards-based data exchange is narrowing. Even platforms that aren’t explicitly “EPCIS compatible” are moving toward architectures that could be mapped to EPCIS with relatively modest integration work.
Ambient IoT devices — energy-harvesting sensors powered by solar energy or radio frequency — are beginning to emerge, potentially eliminating battery dependency and enabling continuous, disposable monitoring at dramatically lower cost per unit. While still early-stage, these devices could fundamentally change the economics of pervasive cold chain monitoring.

Medium-Term (2–5 Years)

Cold chain IoT monitoring certification — combining SANAS calibration requirements, EPCIS-compatible data formats, and communication protocol compliance into a single, recognized certification — is the gap that most needs filling. South African standards bodies, potentially through SABS in collaboration with GS1 South Africa and SANAS, could develop a certification that gives operators, retailers, and regulators a common baseline.
Blockchain integration for export traceability is likely to mature as a verification layer for EPCIS data. EPCIS 2.0 was specifically designed with distributed ledger technology compatibility — the IOTA Foundation was an active contributor to the standard’s development. We’ll explore blockchain’s role in cold chain in depth in our next editorial.
AI-driven predictive analytics layered on standardized data will become practical. Predictive maintenance, route optimization, and risk assessment algorithms all depend on having structured, consistent data to learn from. These capabilities only work when data is interoperable — an AI model trained on one vendor’s proprietary data format can’t read another vendor’s data without significant translation effort. Standardization unlocks the analytics layer.

Long-Term (5–10 Years)

Digital twin cold chain modelling — creating virtual replicas of entire cold chain networks for simulation and optimization — requires standardized sensor data as its foundation. Without interoperable data, digital twins can only model individual silos, not the complete chain.
Automated regulatory compliance reporting — where R638 compliance documentation, GDP audit trails, and export certification are generated directly from standardized IoT data streams — eliminates the manual extraction and report-formatting work that currently consumes significant operator time and creates error risk.
Cold chain data integrity certification — addressing cybersecurity and data authenticity as digital records increasingly replace paper — will become necessary as regulatory authorities place greater trust in digital evidence. This adds another dimension to standardization: not just what data says, but whether it can be trusted.
The key insight across all three horizons: interoperability isn’t just a technical convenience. It’s the prerequisite for every advanced cold chain capability operators want. Predictive maintenance, automated compliance, cross-border digital verification, AI-driven optimization — none of it works without standardized data. Every rand invested in proprietary, siloed monitoring is a rand that doesn’t build toward these capabilities.

What South African Operators Should Do Now

You don’t need to wait for perfect standards to arrive before taking action. But you should stop deepening proprietary lock-in without a credible interoperability roadmap. Here are practical steps.

Ask your monitoring provider about EPCIS 2.0 compatibility. If they can’t answer the question — or don’t know what EPCIS is — that tells you something about their technology roadmap. You don’t need them to be fully EPCIS-compatible today, but you need to know they’re aware of the standard and have a plan for it.
Demand data export in open formats. At minimum, your monitoring platform should allow you to export temperature records in CSV or JSON format with timestamps, GPS coordinates, and device identifiers. Avoid platforms that only offer proprietary dashboards with no data portability. Your data is your data — if you can’t extract it, you’re renting visibility rather than owning it.
Standardize your internal data practices. Even without industry-wide standards, you can adopt consistent naming conventions, measurement intervals, and documentation formats across your fleet. When interoperability standards do arrive, operators with clean internal data practices will transition faster and cheaper than those managing ad hoc systems.
Watch the PPECB digital roadmap. As export documentation moves toward digital formats, early adopters of standardized data will have a significant competitive advantage. Operators who can provide digital temperature records in standard formats will move through export processes faster than those still relying on manual PDF extraction.
Engage with GS1 South Africa. Understand how EPCIS 2.0 applies to your operations, especially if you’re involved in export supply chains. GS1 South Africa can provide guidance on implementation pathways and help connect you with technology providers working toward standards compatibility.
Budget for transition. The shift from proprietary to open standards won’t be free. Plan for hardware upgrades, integration costs, and training over a two to three year window. But frame this investment correctly: you’re not just buying standards compatibility. You’re buying freedom from vendor lock-in, the ability to consolidate monitoring across clients, and the foundation for every advanced capability the industry is moving toward.

Looking Ahead

The cold chain IoT market isn’t slowing down. South Africa will see continued investment in sensors, platforms, and monitoring technology — the growth trajectory is too strong and the compliance pressures too real for it to be otherwise. The question is whether that investment builds interoperable infrastructure or deeper silos.

The standards exist or are emerging. EPCIS 2.0 provides a global data exchange language with built-in cold chain sensor support. The ISO/IEC framework establishes IoT interoperability principles. SANAS provides calibration accreditation. R638 and GDP requirements define what needs to be monitored. What’s missing is the connecting tissue — a cold chain IoT certification that brings these elements together and gives operators, retailers, and regulators a common, verifiable baseline.

For South African operators, the message is pragmatic: choose monitoring partners with open data strategies, push for exportable data formats, and pay attention to the standards landscape. The operators who build interoperability into their systems now won’t have to rebuild when the market catches up.

In our next editorial, we’ll examine blockchain’s role in cold chain traceability — separating signal from noise and assessing where distributed ledger technology adds genuine value versus where it’s an expensive solution looking for a problem. The interoperability foundation discussed here is a prerequisite for that conversation, because blockchain for cold chain only works when the underlying data is standardized.

For a comprehensive overview of every regulation, certification, and compliance requirement affecting South African cold chain operators, see our Compliance Matrix.

Sources & References

About These Sources

This article draws on authoritative sources including international standards bodies (GS1, ISO/IEC), market research firms (Future Market Insights, MarketsandMarkets), South African regulatory authorities (Department of Health, SAHPRA, SANAS), EU legislative documentation, and documented industry implementation case studies. All sources were verified as of February 2026 and represent the most current publicly available information on cold chain IoT standardization.

Citation Methodology

Direct data points in the article reference these sources. Where analysis extends beyond published data — particularly regarding South African operational experience and the interoperability gap assessment — the article draws on The Frozen Food Courier’s operational experience. Readers seeking additional detail on any cited statistic can access the source material directly through the URLs provided.

Currency Note

EUDR enforcement timelines reflect the December 2025 Council and Parliament agreement postponing application to December 2026 for large/medium operators. The regulation remains subject to further simplification review (mandated by April 2026). Market projections reflect published forecasts and should be interpreted as directional rather than definitive. Readers involved in export supply chains should verify current EUDR requirements for their specific commodity categories and operator size classifications.

Standards & Specifications

GS1 EPCIS 2.0 Standard — GS1 Global. The flagship data sharing standard for supply chain visibility, ratified June 2022. Includes sensorElementList for IoT cold chain monitoring data.
EPCIS and CBV Implementation Guideline 2.0 — GS1 Global (March 2023). Comprehensive implementation guidance for EPCIS 2.0 and Core Business Vocabulary, including supply chain event modelling and sensor data structures.
ISO/IEC 21823-1:2019 — Internet of Things (IoT) — Interoperability for IoT systems. Establishes the framework for IoT interoperability across transport, semantic, syntactic, behavioural, and policy facets. International Organization for Standardization.
ISO/IEC 30141:2018 — Internet of Things (IoT) — Reference Architecture. Provides the structural blueprint for IoT system design. International Organization for Standardization.
ISO/IEC 30162:2022 — Internet of Things (IoT) — Compatibility requirements and model for devices within industrial IoT systems. International Organization for Standardization.

Market Data & Industry Analysis

IoT for Cold Chain Monitoring Market Report — Future Market Insights. Projects market growth from USD 8.0 billion (2025) to USD 29.6 billion (2035) at 13.9% CAGR. Hardware segment dominates at 46.8% of market revenue.
Cold Chain Monitoring Market Report — MarketsandMarkets. Projects global cold chain monitoring market growth from USD 8.31 billion (2025) to USD 15.04 billion (2030) at 12.6% CAGR.

Industry Implementation & Case Studies

EPCIS 2.0: Transforming the Global Supply Chain — Digimarc (formerly EVRYTHNG). Documents Australian Table Grapes Association deployment of EPCIS 2.0 with GS1 Digital Link QR codes across 840,000+ product units and 15 export markets.
Australian Table Grapes Association Traceability Pilot — ATGA. Pilot project using GS1 Digital Link-enabled QR codes for serialized product traceability including time and temperature logging across the export supply chain.
OpenEPCIS — Open-source, GS1-compliant EPCIS 2.0 implementation providing modular tools and libraries for standards-based supply chain data exchange.
Introducing EPCIS 2.0 — IOTA Foundation (May 2022). Documents IOTA Foundation’s contributions to EPCIS 2.0 standard development, including DLT compatibility features.

South African Regulatory & Standards

R638 Regulations — Department of Health, South Africa (Government Gazette No. 41730, 22 June 2018). Regulations Governing General Hygiene Requirements for Food Premises, the Transport of Food, and Related Matters. Specifies temperature requirements by food category.
SAHPRA Good Wholesaling Practice Guidelines — South African Health Products Regulatory Authority. Requirements for pharmaceutical cold chain monitoring, including SANAS-calibrated sensor mandates and continuous monitoring requirements.
PPECB Export Certification Framework — Perishable Products Export Control Board, South Africa. Temperature record requirements for perishable product exports.
SANAS Accreditation Standards — South African National Accreditation System. Accreditation for calibration laboratories under ISO/IEC 17025.
CGCSA Supplier Codes of Practice — Consumer Goods Council of South Africa. Retailer supplier monitoring and compliance requirements for cold chain operations.

EU & International Trade

EU Deforestation Regulation — Targeted Revision Adopted — Council of the European Union (December 2025). Application postponed to 30 December 2026 for large/medium operators, 30 June 2027 for micro/small operators.
EU Deforestation Regulation — Parliament Adopts Changes — European Parliament (December 2025). Documents the legislative process for the one-year enforcement delay and simplified compliance measures.
What Is the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR)? — World Resources Institute. Comprehensive overview of EUDR objectives, commodity scope, compliance requirements, and revised timelines.

Research & Technical

GS1 US EPCIS Recommendations for FSMA 204 Critical Tracking Events — GS1 US (Release 2.0, May 2025). Demonstrates practical application of EPCIS 2.0 for food traceability regulatory compliance, including cooling CTE event modelling.
What Is the Biggest Advantage of EPCIS 2.0? — TrackVision (October 2024). Analysis of GS1 Digital Link as the most significant feature of EPCIS 2.0, enabling dynamic master data retrieval and seamless product digitization.

Related Resources

About ColdChainSA

ColdChainSA.com is South Africa’s dedicated cold chain industry directory and resource platform. Founded by Ockert Cameron of The Frozen Food Courier — with over eight years of hands-on refrigerated transport operations and many kilometres of temperature-controlled logistics across Gauteng and the Western Cape — ColdChainSA provides operator-credible technical resources, a comprehensive business directory, and industry analysis grounded in real-world South African cold chain experience.

Why Your Cold Chain IoT Sensors Can’t Talk to Each Other — And What’s Coming to Fix It