FEATURE
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
Speed syndrome in cooling fruit...
By Jan Lievens of UTE
The last 5% of your timing in your product cycle is important, yet there seems to be a problem for a
lot of people to understand the importance is of this statement…
N
ow, I’m really going to throw
pigeons.
There is a vast difference between
making something cold, and cooling
fruit...
A lot has, and still is, being said about
the time that is needed to cool grapes
down to the prescribed temperatures of
+0.8° C or even still -0.5°C.
Everybody wants to cool down as fast
as possible and looks at the clock to get
the forced air cooling tunnel time down
to a sometimes-ridiculous fast time. Now,
that’s all good and well but in the first
place, the rule of thumb seems to have
been be forgotten here; an un-cooled
table grape deteriorates in an hour at
32°C as much as in a day at 4°C or a
week at 0° C.
Secondly, did you ever measure,
and do all your boxes get measured on
the correct end temperature on every
44
www.coldlinkafrica.co.za
a battery of cats among the
If the core temperature of your ‘hottest’ box is above the required core temperature,
it’s a potential recipe for disaster.
COLD LINK AFRICA •
SEPTEMBER 2019