Abstract In snow shooting, pressurised liquid carbon dioxide is injected via a lance into a permeable snow bag mounted near the ceiling of an insulated transport container. The decrease in pressure causes the liquid carbon dioxide to convert to “snow” and vapour inside the snow bag. The snow bag acts as a phase separator, allowing the sublimated snow to keep the preserving temperature inside a container. In this paper the heat transfer coefficient of such a snow bag was determined experimentally. The average heat transfer coefficient was found to be 3.80 Wm−2 K−1.