Brent Rogers is the Director of Future Fresh in NZ, but also works for the Spanish suppliers Bioconservacion SA as the Asia/Pacific Area Manager.In the New Zealand fresh produce industry, ethylene removal is always on everyone’s minds, but it has traditionally been very hard and/or very expensive to remove. It’s simply been in the ‘too hard basket’, without a simple and effective solution. This is what Future Fresh has offered the market for 9 years now with market share growing rapidly every year, however it was never easy convincing the market that it worked.
“We are a sceptical bunch down here in NZ. It took time to prove to them that our technology worked and that it worked well, but we have long since pushed through that constraint," explains Brent Rogers from FutureFresh. "Our products are now proven on many lines of fruit and vegetables throughout NZ, including kiwi, apple, avocado, citrus, greens, mixed loads, wholesalers, distribution centres and more.” According to Brent a much less known fact is that it is just as vital to remove Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) such as acetaldehyde, ethanol and in the case of citrus and pineapple, also limonene. VOCs are ‘chemical signals’ produced by fruit and vegetables, signalling for airborne fungi spores to ‘attack here’, so removal is also important. On top of this, they also remove the fungi spores themselves.
Future Fresh has a single solution to remove all of the above using 1 of 3 applications – scrubbers for cool stores, rod filters for reefer exports and small sachets for in-pack solution.
“We have the capacity to remove ethylene, VOCs, bacteria and fungi spores from the entire cool-chain, for numerous types of fresh produce. Our goal is for the NZ consumer to be buying even fresher produce than they already do – at the same time it will be more nutritious. The more of the cool-chain we can cover, the better the value for the end consumer, not to mention less spoilage throughout the cool-chain,” says Brent.
Future Fresh technology is manufactured by Bioconservacion in Spain, who have been producing and improving ethylene removal technology since 1996. On top of his Future Fresh business, Brent also works for Bioconservacion as the Asia/Pacific Area Manager and has done for 3 years now.
“The growth in our product throughout Asia over the last 3 years has been exceptional. I began with 2 partners in Philippines and Malaysia turning over <$500,000 US and I am proud to say that we have further partners in Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, China, India, Vietnam and more recently Indonesia – together, the total turnover for 2017 will exceed $1.8Mil US, so as in NZ, the Asia market is really beginning to understand the need for our type of technology”, says Brent.
For more information:
Brent Rogers
Tel: +64 21 844 484
Email: brogers@bioconservacion.com
www.bioconservacion.com