New cooling technique ensuring longer shelf life fresh produce

Permachill is a new cooling technique, developed by food innovation company TOP bv from Wageningen. The technique cools in a stable manner, ensuring the same optimum temperature of just above zero degrees to be achieved everywhere in the cold store. This ensures fresh produce can be stored longer, and less loss occurs compared to conventional cooling technologies. This is an interesting solution for all players in the fresh produce distribution chain, for reasons of both economy and sustainability.

Cooling evenly, at the same temperature everywhere

Conventional cooling techniques cool products at a temperature of 4 to 7 °C using air cooling. The influx of air causes fluctuations in temperature that can even lead to frost damage in the fragile produce. The stable cooling technique of Permachill isn't based on one central cooling unit, but uses the walls of the store as a cooling element. This makes it possible to cool produce evenly, and to keep it cool. The optimum temperature can be achieved because of this, which is just above zero degrees for many products, without any chance of freezing. The product 'hibernates', extending its shelf life.

Sustainable and economic advantages

The technique can be applied in cooled storage, but also in cooled transport. After all, every link in the chain can benefit from longer shelf life for fresh produce. Apart from saving on cost thanks to less loss and better product quality, the logistical process becomes a lot more flexible. Centralized production is one of the possibilities, and a larger geographical sales area can be reached. This means new markets and thus potential growth. In addition, the system uses less energy than conventional cooling methods, contributing to sustainability of the chain.

Chain-wide application highest attainable

In the ideal situation, Permachill is applied in every link in the chain. Wouter de Heij, manager of TOP bv: "Individually, the various links in the fresh produce chain are becoming increasingly efficient and professional. But there's still a lot to gain in a chain-wide approach. Through contiguous stable cooling in the entire chain, shelf life of products can be significantly extended."

Calculate shelf life gain yourself

TOP bv also introduces an accompanying web app (online calculation method) on the Permachill website (www.permachill.eu). This calculates the potential shelf life gain that can be achieved when using the Permachill cooling technique on fresh produce. The difference is clearly noticeable in lettuce shelf life in conventional cold storage, compared to Permachill storage: shelf life is suddenly extended by 3 days. Potential users of the system can extensively evaluate the cooling technique, and see what it could do for their company.