Large companies that have been active around the world for years, providing quality solutions to fruit and vegetables producers, begin to show an increased interest in emerging markets and the needs of the players in such areas.
One such example is German giant GEA, particularly GEA Refrigeration Africa, a subsidiary of GEA Refrigeration Technologies, which has designed and implemented – on behalf of the Dutch company Cool Fresh International BV – the refrigeration system for a fruit and vegetable storage facility in Aussenkehr, Namibia. This cold-storage warehouse is designed to store products such as grapes, melons, dates, and tomatoes cultivated as part of the Orange River Irrigation Project of the government Agricultural Ministry, and marketed by Cool Fresh. The new storage complex comprises four halls, including sorting, consignment, and receipt of incoming fruit and vegetables through a cooling tunnel. One GEA Grasso G3.10 and two GEA Grasso G4.10 ammonia piston compressors provide the refrigeration needed for the halls.
The compressors here operate in single-stage mode to cool the halls, as required, to the required temperature of approx. 0 °C to a maximum of 12 °C. At hall temperatures around 8 °C, they offer cooling duty up to 180 kW (G3.10) and 240 kW (G4.10). In the halls, cooling is provided by zinc-plated evaporators via air flow. During design work, the GEA project team took into account that the humidity in the hall would remain high enough to prevent drying of the fruit and vegetables. Storage of the dates, which are harvested from February to April, required a special solution to enable them to be frozen in one of the halls until export. The refrigeration system operates in two stages (–28 °C/0 °C and 0 °C/+35 °C) to achieve the required temperature of –20 °C in the hall.
Special valve units enable switch-over between the two-stage mode for freezing and the single-stage cooling mode. The concept has proven effective: immediately after the warehouse complex was commissioned in September of 2011, it was required to prove its effectiveness in the African summer. Result: it met expectations with respect to energy efficiency. Not least responsible for these results is the natural refrigerant ammonia, which enables great efficiency in the central refrigeration complex. In addition, ammonia is climate-friendly – since any ammonia leaks will not contribute either to the greenhouse effect or to depletion of the ozone layer. But this was not the only aspect speaking for GEA. Loek Schoenmaker, CFO of Cool Fresh International, said, “We awarded the contract to GEA because this company – like our firm – operates in accordance with international standards.”
Reducing energy consumption
At the beginning of the year, GEA also partnered with The Bonduelle Group, suppliers of canned vegetables, deep-frozen vegetables, and processed salads, which modernized and expanded cold-storage facilities at its location in Estrées, close to Péronne, France. In the refrigeration plant of the existing Bonduelle facilities, the company replaced the previous refrigerant R22 (known for its great ozone depletion potential) by the natural alternative ammonia (R717). At the same time, Bonduelle constructed a new cold-storage facility, 35 meters high, that offers around 24,000 pallet storage slots and that is equipped with advanced refrigeration technology. The company awarded GEA Refrigeration France with the refrigeration contracts for upgrading the old plant, as well as for the new high-bay storage facility. The value of the contract was a total of almost two million Euro.
GEA implemented the refrigeration technology for the new, fully automatic high-bay cold-storage facilities – with even greater efficiency gains. Even with its capacity of 24,000 storage slots, the pallet facility operates with cooling duty of a mere 2,100 kW – provided by two screw type GEA YR-Y2655S-28 ammonia refrigeration units that provide temperatures of −28 °C. These units support five GEA Goedhardt air coolers from the segment GEA Heat Exchangers. These air coolers, designed to stimulate the thermo-syphon effect, blow cold air coming from the ceiling downwards and assure effective penetration of the cold-storage unit, with a volume of about 150,000 m³. Designers of the solution took care that the shelf rows, with their 14 storage levels, as well as the six storage and retrieval systems, would have minimal influence on temperature distribution.
Sorting of frozen fruit and vegetables requires flexibility
Another example of solutions provider for companies active on emerging markets is The Bühler Group, a global leader in process engineering and is particularly active in production technologies for food manufacture and engineering materials. In fact, the company operates in over 140 countries and has over 8,000employees worldwide and in fiscal 2011, the Group generated revenues of more than CHF 2.0 billion.
Bühler’s flexibility and customer care helped a Turkish fruit and vegetable processor meet its sorting requirements. A Bursa based company, Martas Marmara Agricultural Food had initially ordered two Sortex K optical sorters, but following a last minute review, the company decided that a more compact sorter was required. Martas Marmara changed one of the two Sortex K orders to a smaller sorter to help the company meet its processing requirements. Bühler acted promptly by co-ordinating the last minute change. A Sortex E1D sorter was immediately commissioned and shipped. Martas Marmara processes a wide range of frozen fruit and vegetable products from its substantial farmland in the Yenisehir and Mustafakemalpasa areas of North West Turkey. Martas’ production sites in Bursa and Kemalpasa have a combined processing capacity of 40,000 tonnes of fruit and vegetables across a range of products including green beans, peppers, okra and strawberries.
Ulfuk Acar, director at Martas said: “We selected Bühler’s Sortex technology as it offered the best level of product recovery and safest and most secure removal of foreign material (FM) with PROfile (shape recognition) technology to remove stalks, pods and stems the same colour as the product. However, we felt that the Sortex E1D sorter would be more appropriate to suit our immediate needs than the second Sortex K2A machine we had originally ordered.” Bühler’s flexibility meant that this was not a problem and despite the original machine being ready for shipment, a new machine was built, installed and commissioned in record time. By working with the local Turkish agent Atomika Machinery, Bühler ensured the process ran smoothly and Martas Marmara received the best machine for its needs. Acar continued: “We appreciated having local Turkish speaking support from Bühler’s agent and were pleased that Bühler pulled out all the stops to supply the SORTEX E1D instead. It is rare that suppliers are able to display this degree of flexibility.”
Sortex K and Sortex E
The Sortex K range was developed by Bühler with customers’ needs in mind. It combines double sided viewing with high definition cameras and Sortex enhanced InGaAs cameras to ensure efficient removal of FM and extraneous vegetable matter (EVM). The Sortex K range overcame the weakness of previous generations of traditional sorters to satisfactorily remove wood, plastic and cardboard, which are a major cause of customer complaints. Similarly, the Sortex E range was designed to bring the benefits of large sorters like the Sortex K to processors with restricted space whilst still delivering high quality inspection for discoloured or misshaped product, subtle blemishes, FM and EVM. Like all Sortex machines, the Sortex E1D combines bichromatic cameras, InGaAs technology, PROfile shape technology, and fast, precise ejectors to ensure accurate elimination of contaminants.