1973
What’s this about? We are in 2022… So, what’s in a year? And why 1973? A lot is in a year…
· U.S. President Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam.
· Artist Pablo Picasso dies at his home in France.
· Skylab, the United States’ first space station, is launched.
· Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev addresses the American people on television, the first to do so.
It’s also the year where Dr Johan Combrink, eventually becoming director of ARC Infruitec-Nietvoorbij till he retired, writes an abstract where he recommends that Filacell® technology should be tested as a solution for the South African Grape industry. Due to the difficulty in getting technologies into the country, it never happened.
In 1998, Filacell® was eventually brought into the country by Jan Lievens, our senior postharvest consultant.
In 1999 the technology was installed on a Table Grape Farm in the Bergriver area.
The concept was clear, cool as quickly as possible after harvest with high humidity air and ship.
But why write about it now? Simple. In 2018 we received a phone call from the farmer asking us to extend his facilities. He’s still using Filacell®’ technology successfully.
And he still ships every season out with the same principle, only thing that changed was, due to the perception overseas that a bag and an SO2 sheet is needed for grapes from South Africa, that he developed his own bag with 12 mm holes and put in an SO2 sheet…
Due to the big holes the air can reach the grapes and the SO2 sheet, which has been tested by the manufacturers, is giving all its gas off in the initial phase of the cooling process but does nothing during the voyage…
The pallets are than wrapped as a unit…
And the grapes were accepted and still are. Due to the fast cooling concept with high humidity, the grapes are showing far better green stems than traditional cooled grapes.
The Filacell® system is a Fast and energy-efficient pre-cooling system with a minimum loss of moisture and an even air distribution. The №1 system on the market for the pre-cooling, fast cooling and long-term storage of fresh products.
The Filacell® refrigeration system developed by Nijssen in the Netherlands, extends the shelf life of perishables, such as vegetables, fruit and cut flowers, two to three times longer than conventional refrigeration systems. The Filacell® system is also ideally suited to application in climate chambers.
The Nijssen Filacell® system is a wet cooling system. This eliminates dehydration and prevents your product from condensation or freezing.
Perishables that have been pre-cooled by Nijssen Filacell® for shipment to a faraway destination will be just as fresh upon arrival as when they were packaged.
This system uses only 1/3 of the energy a traditional system uses to get the same results.
Advantages:
· Constant temperature, up to a minimum of +0.5 °C
· Easy to use
· Minimum energy consumption
· Filters out harmful organisms and undesirable gases
· Built from environmentally friendly elements
· Low maintenance costs
The “traditional” refrigeration industry, engineers and contractors, created the perception that it does not work. They created the belief or opinion based on fear that it wouldn’t work… It’s called PERCEPTION. It does work. It’s working and even after nearly 50 years, it can still make a difference…
It does already for over 20 years in the Bergriver Area and it’s still working…
Talk to us, we are by far the most specialized Applied Postharvest Technology specialists in Africa.
