HardyWeinberg

I think I'm going to buy some blue ice at lunchtime to throw into the pannier w/ the fish I hope to be bringing home this evening.

bmclaughlin807

I picked up a soft-sided cooler from Family dollar... cost me a whole $5. I use it to keep lunch warm when I bring food back to the office, and to keep cold stuff cold if I'm riding farther than the half mile I usually ride to the store.

As an added bonus, the color matches my bike! (Yeah... you should have seen me standing in the doorway of the store with the cashiers as we held up a couple different shades of blue to see which one matched the best. ) I can put it in my grocery panniers, or use the strap through and over my rack to strap it to the side like a pannier.

swwhite

IF the situation you are trying to cover is that of picking up some groceries on the way home, AND if you have an office refrigerator with a freezer, THEN you could do some advance preparation by bringing to work a couple of those blue re-usable frozen things and storing them at work in the freezer. On a day when you plan to stop at the grocery store, grab one before you leave work and carry it in the insulated bag. Put the cold groceries in the bag with the blue thing. When you get home, set out the blue thing so that you remember to take it back to work the next day, to pop into the freezer again. If you have to do this two days in a row, the second blue thing is there at work ready to go while the first one re-freezes. Be sure to tape your name on the blue things so that when the maintenance guys clean out the refrigerator they don't throw them away.

Artkansas 

I have a soft-sided cooler that I got from a local convenience store. It seems to keep things cold.

You might consider a freezer brick to keep things cold, then pop it in the refrigerator at work.

I used to carry a 2 liter of Pepsi to work. I would freeze it and bungie it to my rack. By the time I got to work 50 minutes later it was thawed but still cold. I would cover it though to prevent the sun from warming it up. Plastic bags in winter, a newspaper in summer.

Brian Sorrell

I have a soft cooler that's made for my rack. I use cold packs that used to be for my injured back. If I forget to freeze them, I use ziplocks full of ice and a bit of water -- just don't let them pop open

bragi

I have Ortlieb waterproof panniers, and they're made of fairly thick material. I've carried bags of ice in them before for well over half an hour in 85-90 F, and have only noticed minimal melting in that time. Maybe they'd work for frozen foods, milk, and meat as well. (My grocery store is only 10 minutes away by bike, so I've never tried food for the same length of time, though..)

HardyWeinberg

Made it home w/ the salmon, one fish per pannier, 2 blue ice packs per fish.

ryanparrish

Construction gloves ask one of the clerks working in the frozen section to see if they have dry ice. When I worked at a local grocery store the frozen warehouses would stick chunks of dry ice in the trailers to keep things cold and then we would put them in our freezers for customers that ask. Some grocery stores even carry dry ice you can buy. Even if the frozen food is not frozen and still at a chill it is still good milk and yogurt need to be kept at a constant 40 degrees cheese no problem fish be carefull eggs no problem they can actually set out side at room temp for days butter no problem it can stay at room temp for awhile but no pressure please other wise it will squeeze out everywhere somethings I learned while working in parishables meat is nice it freezes well and stays that way for long so if you can pick some frozen chunks of meat and have them act as freeze packs for the rest of the stuff

legot73

Ask at your grocery store for one of these bad boys! You can also check www.carrycool.net:

Roody

I just stick the frozen stuff in the back of my backpack and it keeps me cool.

I remember taking my Thanksgiving Bonus turkey home in a backpack. It's frozen, bony little knees were sticking into my back for the whole ride, and every dog in town was following me.