Harvesting, packing and transport of strawberries from the field to packhouse facilities can take hours. Delays before cooling are detrimental for fruit quality and shelf-life, especially when the weather is warm. The PQC are working as part of a consortium to develop a portable chiller that can be used in the field to ensure rapid and efficient cooling of fruit. The consortium is led by JDCooling Ltd, and includes Scorpion Vision Ltd and Berry Gardens Ltd.

This project has been funded through Innovate UK and is now in its third season. An experimental cooling system has been set up at the PQC facilities to allow detailed studies for the optimisation of cooling protocols. This led to the design of an in-field chiller (CoolBerry rig) initially tested for chilling one pallet, and now extended with capacity to chill three pallets. The three pallet version is undergoing the first tests this season.

In addition to the advantages of rapid cooling to improve quality and extend storage life, the CoolBerry rig design allows loading and unloading of whole pallets, which reduces the need for repeated construction and deconstruction of the pallet. This constitutes a very significant saving in labour, which is especially important at this time of Covid-19 and Brexit.

For more information on this work, contact Richard Colgan at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.