Cold Link Africa September/October 2017 | Page 43

PROJECT INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN FPT increases cold treatment capacity for citrus exports By Ilana Koegelenberg When FPT Group decided to upgrade cold rooms at its facility at the Port of Cape Town, they approached MRE to retrofit the cold rooms in record time. A shipping vessel at the Port of Cape Town, ready to load citrus pallets. P rior to the upgrade, FPT’s facility in the Port of Cape Town had eight chambers on the ground floor and three on the first floor that could be used to cool and store produce before it is loaded into containers / conventional vessels in the port. “We always had holding rooms on the first floor but they were never used to cool down fruit. We usually rented them out to customers who export flowers and other products,” explains Brendin Madaramoothoo, the technical manager at FPT. The vessel’s crane lifting the citrus pallets onto the ship, ready for shipment to the US. Due to the increased requirement for cold treatment capacity in the port, FPT decided to upgrade the cold rooms on the first floor. The capacity of the eight chambers on the ground floor is 4 600 pallets, but additional space was required to accommodate close to 5 200 pallets in total. The upgrade included recommissioning of the existing three chambers and the addition of five more chambers to a total of eight chambers. COLD LINK AFRICA • September | October 2017 www.coldlinkafrica.co.za 43