PROJECT
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
1
forced cooling tunnels; two DX coils in the
airlock of the cooling tunnels; two DX coils
in a holding room; and two DX coils in the
dispatch area.
The plant is designed to rapidly cool the
pulp temperature of palletised cartons of
grapes to 0 o C. Each tunnel cools 24 pallets
stacked with 180 cartons of grapes each.
Outside of the table grape season, the
cooling tunnels will freeze dates to -18 o C.
To handle all the different cooling loads,
the two racks operate with two suctions;
that is, +5 o C and -5 o C (for table grapes)
and +5 o C and -25 o C (for dates). Table
grape packing is done over a period of 10
weeks and dates for a period of six months.
“The annual operating hours of the plant
are high compared with other table grape
pack houses and therefore required unique
design considerations. By incorporating the
air-conditioning load of the packing area
within the same racks that handle product
cooling, the capital cost was reduced by
more than R1-million and energy usage by
350kVA,” says Danie van Zyl of CoolCheck,
who designed the plant.
4
2
1. A futuristic view of the six rapid
cooling chambers designed for
chilling table grapes and the
freezing of dates.
5
2. Chilled water coils in the pre-
coolers.
3. The first harvest of table grapes
to be packed in the new
Luiperdshoek pack house.
4. Louvres for the air i