PROJECT
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
Continued from page 1
Cape Fruit Coolers’ new facility in Richmond Park
The new cold store of Cape Fruit
Coolers in Richmond Park was
completed in record time ahead of
the start of the 2019 citrus season. Of the
4 000 pallet capacity, 2 300 can be
under forced cooling or in the
sterilisation programme as required by
certain destination markets.
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With a daily sterilisation capacity of
only 600 pallets at their store in Killarney
Gardens, Cape Fruit Coolers (CFC)
needed extra capacity to handle, in
particular the 10% annual growth, in
the export market of citrus. Markets in
Europe do not require such sterilisation
while the expanding markets in the
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All images by John Ackermann
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Far East and China all have different
sterilisation protocols.
Richmond Park was chosen for
the new site because of its good
infrastructure, double roads, and easy
access to the N7 highway, which closely
links to the N1 highway. Large volumes
of citrus arrive from the Citrusdal area on
the N7 highway and so does the table
grapes from the Orange River area and
Northern Cape.
Cape Fruit Coolers, with its major
shareholders in the fresh fruit distribution
chain, cools, stores and dispatches a
wide variety of fruit, starting with table
grapes in November, followed by
deciduous, apple and pears, citrus of
every variety, avocados, sub-tropicals,
pomegranates, blue berries and small
volumes of vegetables such as sweet
potatoes.
For at least 11 months of the year, the store
needs to operate 24/7 to meet sailing
dates of conventional refrigerated vessels
with citrus for the US or container ships
taking a variety of fruits to foreign markets.
At the heart of the new CFC complex
in Richmond Park, are three Mycom
screw packages connected to an
ammonia circuit of two evaporative
condensers (BAC CXVE 628), receiver,
accumulator drum, two horizontal
pumper drums and 74 flooded
evaporator blower coils.
All coils are of stainless-steel tubes and
aluminium fins. Two of the compressors are
Mycom 250VLDs fitted with 450kW motors
and the third a Mycom 250VSD with a
315kW motor. The sterilisation programme
for the US requires the palletised citrus to be
under cooling for 72 hours and during the
last 24 hours the fruit is to be held at -0,6 o C.
1. The operations office has space for expansion.
2. The mass of pallets of citrus averages 1 300kgs compared with 1 000kgs of most other fruit.
3. The inspection room for PPECB, US inspectors, and other inspection agencies.
4. Fork trucks are fitted with lithium batteries which require much less handling, recharge
quicker, are greener with less environmental impact and can be charged at any of the
recharging points around the complex.
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www.coldlinkafrica.co.za COLD LINK AFRICA • October 2020