Actively managed food delivery

A computer-implemented method, the method comprising:

• receiving, by the computer, status information about a product container that contains a product at different times as the product container travels from an origin to a destination,
• wherein the status information includes sensor-derived conditions in the product container including at least temperature and an amount of light in the product container;
• determining, by the computer, preferred ranges for the conditions of the product container based on a profile associated with the product stored therein, wherein the profile comprises pre-heating and/or pre-cooling conditions to apply to the product container before the product is placed in the product container and/or before delivery of the product;
• determining, by the computer, whether the received conditions from the product container are in the preferred ranges;
• sending, by the computer, a command to perform a corrective action in response to determining that at least one of the received conditions is and/or has been outside the associated preferred range for a first predetermined amount of time;
• in response to detecting inactivity by an entity currently having the product to perform the corrective action, sending a second command to an environmental control unit coupled to the product container for maintaining the ideal delivery conditions;
• and
• in response to determining that at least one of the received conditions is and/or has been outside the associated preferred range for a second predetermined amount of time, alerting, by the computer, a receiver of the product in the product container not to accept the delivery of the product in the product container.

A computer-implemented method for managing a product delivery process, comprising:

• obtaining, by the computer, ideal delivery conditions associated with a food product;
• accumulating, by the computer during a delivery of the food product, sensor data associated with the food product, wherein the sensor data is obtained by at least one sensor which is coupled to a product container containing the food product;
• analyzing, by the computer during the delivery of the food product, the sensor data obtained by the at least one sensor associated with the food product;
• identifying, by the computer during the delivery of the food product, condition data associated with conditions in the product container containing the food product;
• generating, by the computer during the delivery of the food product, a food product history for the food product including the condition data;
• comparing, by the computer during the delivery of the food product, the food product history to the ideal delivery conditions;
• determining, during the delivery of the food product, a corrective action based on results of the comparing;
• sending, by the computer during the delivery of the food product, a command to perform a corrective action during the delivery of the food product in response to determining that the received condition data indicates that the conditions in the product container are outside preferred ranges for the ideal handing and/or process conditions for the food product;
• in response to detecting inactivity by an entity currently having the product to perform the corrective action, sending a second command to an environmental control unit coupled to the product container for maintaining the ideal delivery conditions;
• analyzing, by the computer, performance of entities involved in delivery of the food product from an origin to a destination using at least the food product history, the condition data, and the ideal delivery conditions;
• generating, by the computer, a report based on the analysis of the performance of the entities;
• and
• outputting, by the computer, the report.