The Key to Transporting Fresh Fruit & Veg

Due to the differing requirements for the safe preservation of different fruit and vegetables, it is vital to know what you are transporting, know what environment it requires and monitor this environment during its long transit.

One of the key environmental elements for ripening goods is temperature. The optimum temperature for ripening goods in general is between 12-14⁰C. This promotes low rates of respiration, extended storage life, and reduces the rate of microorganism development, meaning food will ripen more slowly. It is important to monitor temperature, firstly to ensure that these optimum conditions have been maintained throughout the entire journey and secondly, should any issue have arisen, to understand what temperature changes took place outside of the optimum.

This is particularly important when considering lower temperatures, as chill damage affects plants differently. Tropical plants are more susceptible to chill damage but even those grown in lower temperatures can be damaged at the stalk which can cause damage to spread through the fruit or vegetable’s tissue. Chill damage is usually shown by pitting surface tissues, discolouration of the flesh and increased susceptibility to decay, and may not be safe to serve to customers.

In addition, the humidity should be monitored and maintained between 85% to 95% relative humidity, as this reduces wilting in plants while also avoiding the growth of mould in the carriage.

The EasyLog Cold Chain data logger range includes temperature and temperature/humidity data logging options specially developed for ripening goods transportation. Activated at the click of a button, these USB data loggers measure and store temperature and humidity data with pre-configured high and low alarms at 12-14⁰C. While in logging mode, a quick click of the button will show the status of the device by lighting up the LED red if the temperature has exceeded an alarm at any point. Once the journey is completed, simply plug the device into your PC using the inbuilt USB connector where you can view, download and graph the data using the free EasyLog CC software.

For temperature-only cold-chain data loggers see the EL-CC-1-003, for temperature and humidity logging see EL-CC-2-003, or click here for the full range.

For any enquiries, please get in touch with our team:

Tel: +44 (0)1425 651111

Email: sales@filesthrutheair.com