(Media, PA, USA) Vertical Airflow Pre-Coolers™ can help savvy produce operators, to save pre-cooling time, which increases shelf life and quality for fruit and vegetables.
Global Cooling Inc., one of the leading innovators worldwide in forced air-cooling systems, designed and built the first prototypes several years ago. Now, after three seasons of use and fine-tuning, Global feels confident about launching the product line worldwide.
“We think this is the future of the industry,” explained Global’s founder, Jim Still. “Vertical airflow pre-coolers cost a little more than tarp tunnels, but the advantages are overwhelming.”
The vertical airflow pre-coolers’ main advantage is that they do not suffer from the pressure drops typical of tarp tunnels. “This means that the cooling temperatures are much more uniform,” Still continued, “and the seven-eighths cooling time is reduced.”
This is because every pallet or bin is located at the same distance from the pressure fans and cooling coils. “And not with some being right next to the source, and others being 20 feet away from it.”
The vertical airflow pre-coolers also require a smaller footprint, or floor space, than do tarp tunnels, saving valuable warehouse or cold room real estate.
Finally, each vertical airflow pre-cooler is provided in its own insulated panel enclosure, to prevent new loads from reheating loads ready to finish, and can have doorways at both ends, providing for first-in, first-out, product handling. “It’s also safer and faster, from a material handling and flow viewpoint, to have loading at one end, and unloading at the other,” concluded Still.
"Pre-cooling" – which is the term for quickly reducing the temperature of fresh harvested fruit and vegetables, to ideal temperatures – greatly helps to extend the shelf life and net weight to sell, of almost all fresh produce.
Global Cooling is a leading supplier of refrigeration designs to fresh fruit companies in the Philadelphia region, and exports worldwide.
Source: Global Cooling
