Forrester Estate from Zimbabwe evaluates the efficiency of Miatech`s Bio Turbo – solution for removing ethylene and airborne pathogens in cold rooms to understand the possibility of expanding market operations.
About 90% of citrus losses are caused by a single type of fungus called “Penicillium digitatum”, more commonly known as “Green Mold”. One infected fruit is enough to generate billions of spores which fly around the cold room infecting healthy fruit items. This was not an exception with Forrester Estate. The company produces clementines, lemons, and vegetable peas for export to Europe. They faced issues with mold spreading on many fruits and vegetables, especially the citrus fruit. There were also problems with ethylene causing fast ripening, shrivelling, and unpleasant decay odor.
The company began to explore possible solutions for improving their storage. Their choice was a Miatech`s Bio Turbo system for removing ethylene and airborne pathogens and reducing cross-contamination.
Bio Turbo uses patented four-stage air purification process which effectively removes ethylene and 99.5% of airborne bacteria. Although Bio Turbo technology uses Ozone in one of its four stages to destroy ethylene and airborne pathogens, ozone is never released into the cold room, which makes Bio Turbo technology completely safe for humans, creating a better and safer work environment for people too.
After more than 2 years of continuous use and good results, they decided to conduct trials to evaluate the efficiency of Bio Turbo.
John Perrot, General Manager of Forrester Citrus Zimbabwe wrote a letter to Coldroom Ozone (Pvt) Ltd – our Miatech dealer in Zimbabwe, where he described in detail their findings.
“We have done a few trials with the clementines which were packed in week 19 (7th may). Four cartons were pulled out in week 33 (14 weeks after packing) and checked for mold and fruit unfit for sale. There was less than 1 % decay.
The fruit was checked again in another 4 cartons in Week 42 (17th October) still we found less than 2% decay.
Before Forrester purchased a Bio Turbo we would face 25% decay in any stored fruit.
The Bio Turbo has changed our approach to store more fruit for the regional markets for clementines and lemons”, tells John Perrot.
For more information, please, contact:
Oleg Kuts
Miatech
Tel. +1 (503) 659-5680
Email: oleg@miatech.org
www.miatech.org
www.bio-turbo.com