Vegetable and Fruit Storing System

Fresh vegetables and fruits are not only a luxury, but a necessity and an opportunity for good business, too.

Vegetables and fruits in the middle of their production time have the best taste and quality, but the lowest resistance and price. Our project introduces an alternative to current storing technologies, which are energy-intensive, produce low-quality final products, and are expensive. Conventional methods clean the products, cool them at low temperatures, store them in a normal atmosphere for several months, and then put them on the market. The cooling process is very energy-inefficient, the products lose their original taste, their colors fade, and many get damaged and damage nearby products — because the bacteria and fungi on their skin and inside them start the destruction process.

What is unique compared to competitors?

Our technology focuses on destroying most of the bacteria and fungi at the beginning of the storage process, after harvesting and transporting the products to storage capacity. This can be done by UV exposure or ozone exposure. After treatment, the products are stored in insulated chambers — but instead of powerful coolers and a normal atmosphere, we introduce a nitrogen-rich, oxygen-poor atmosphere at 12–16 °C, keeping it until they are put on the market. The destruction process is blocked for as long as the atmosphere has very low oxygen.

The storage process is supervised by automation and a smart system that presents live and historical analysis of storage-atmosphere parameters, humidity, temperature, color, and product quality. Before sending to market, the atmosphere is changed to normal and the temperature reduced to 8 °C, to comply with distribution and logistics technologies. Thus, we can eat tomatoes at Christmas with August flavor and taste, and strawberries with July taste. Costs are much lower than classical storage technology, energy consumption is much lower, and the products' pollution footprint is much lower than with classical storage.