Keeping Products Cold and The Importance of Moisture
Fruits and vegetables survive and respiration continues even after their harvest. As a result, they lose their qualities and deteriorate. In order to prevent this deterioration and protect the quality, it is possible to protect them for a certain period of time in cold storage conditions specific to each product. However, we can list some factors that must be taken into consideration in order to get a desired result.
1- Product types and qualities must be suitable for cold storage.
2- Proper harvesting and transportation should be done
3- Pre-cooling location and method should be determined
4- Storage in the cold storage should be in suitable conditions (temperature, humidity, air speed, homogeneous distribution, stacking).
If the storage temperature is lowered for a long time during the cold storage of fruits and vegetables after their harvest, it affects the quality negatively and the storage time decreases. For this reason, it is very important to use precooling for cold storage of fruits and vegetables. Especially many fruits and vegetables such as strawberries, sour cherries, cherries, peaches, apricots, tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini must undergo pre-cooling process and this process should generally be done after the harvest of fruits and vegetables before they are transported to the consumption places. On the other hand, fruits that have been stored for a long time, such as apples, can be pre-cooled in the places where they are stored.
Problems Encountered in Cold Storage
In order for cold storages to work efficiently, the following conditions must be fulfilled.
1- Suitable Project
2- Correct Manufacturing
3- Correct Installation
4- Correct Business
It is certain that there are no projecting errors, cooling load analysis is done well, the pipe diameters of the compressor, condenser and cooler surfaces, the ventilator flow rate and velocity are selected well, and that a significant amount of energy saving is achieved in systems where automation systems are made accurately. With the development of technology, although the above issues are done in the best way, the humidification problem, which is still not done in a controlled manner in cold storage depots, leads to serious product and quality losses.
1- Weight loss is accelerated. (It gives more waste in a short time).
2- Product life is reduced.
3- The product loses its freshness and quality.
As can be seen from the table above, 92 tons of poor quality apples that have lost their freshness are obtained as a result of storing 100 tons of apples in a warehouse with 75% humidity for 120 days. The ideal conditions for apple storage are humidity around 95% and temperature around 0ºC.
In recent years, it has been observed that cold storage investors have been in an intense effort and search to find a solution to the humidification problem. Humidification must be designed and applied very precisely in cold storage environments that can fall to (-) minus values.
The producers must evaluate the products they produce by spending intensive labor and money in the most efficient way. In particular, the recovery of apple, which is an important export product of our country, from cold storages by maintaining its minimum waste and quality will enable producers to gain higher income and more permanent markets.
Back to