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The ‘5 star hotel’ preserves the fruit

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CA (Controlled Atphosphere) technology helps preserve fruit 2 – 4 times longer than other methods. Particularly with apples, can be stored up to 12 months.
Eat apples all year round thanks to gas regulation technology

Let’s start with the apple story in America. According to the American Apples Association, every year, only about 5% of the apples consumed in the country are imported products, the remaining 95% are domestic apples. American apples are produced mainly in three states: Washington, New York and Michigan. Remove fruit from storage with gas regulation technology. Photo: Thanh Son. Depending on the variety and state, the apple harvest season in the US is between mid-August and mid-November each year. However, Americans can eat apples all year round and the quality of the apple is still very good, even if it has been harvested for many months. The secret to keeping the American apple fresh for a long time lies in the preservation technology with the CA (Controlled Atphosphere) method. Once harvested, the apple continues to respire by absorbing oxygen, releasing CO2, and maturing to ripening. But when the apple is hibernated, the respiration rate slows down, and the quality, color, taste and nutrition are maintained. Based on that principle, CA technology adjusts the ratio of oxygen, CO2, nitrogen, temperature, and humidity to a suitable level to form a friendly hibernation environment for apples after harvest. Thanks to that, it helps apples in the US to be more fresh for a long time compared to being stored in a cold environment. Professor Chris Watkins (Cornell University) affirmed, the apple industry in the US would not exist without CA technology. High loss in conventional refrigeration Ms. Quach Thi Le Chan, Director of CASS Agricultural Conservation Company Limited (Long An) said that after harvest, vegetables, fruits and other agricultural products continued to breathe and breathe stronger than before. when harvested. Therefore, agricultural businesses all know that refrigeration will slow down agricultural respiration, reduce nutrient loss, reduce heat generation, and prolong the life span. The earlier agricultural products reduce their respiration, the longer their life expectancy. Therefore, cooling quickly for fruits and agricultural products is the first choice of many businesses in preserving fresh agricultural products. Put the fruit into storage in cold storage at CASS Agricultural Product Preservation Company Limited. Photo: Thanh Son. However, every agricultural product has a storage temperature limit, if refrigerated beyond the lower limit, they will suffer cold damage. Vietnam is in the tropics, so agricultural products often have not low lower limit. Therefore, the storage must ensure that the temperature is cooled quickly and not above the appropriate temperature. Under commercial storage conditions, this is difficult to do because produce is stacked on pallets, preventing cold air from cooling the bulk. In addition, the ventilation fan system is only located in a few points, near the fan, very strong wind is easy to lose water, cold damage, the blinds will be poor convection, difficult to cool the block. On the other hand, when the temperature has not decreased, the intensity of respiration (heat generation) in the mass is still high, making it more difficult to cool down. A typical example is that dragon fruit has the recommended storage temperature of 6 degrees Celsius, but the current cold stores do not dare to stay at this temperature because most are damaged after a few days. The warehouses currently have to cool down a few degrees to ensure a quicker cooling of the left mass. This means that a certain proportion of goods will be cold (about 20-30% of volume). The signs of cold lesions will usually appear after about 10 days, causing the loss rate to increase. The “5 star hotel” hibernates the fruit In order to contribute to reducing post-harvest agricultural product loss and keeping Vietnamese agricultural products fresher longer, CASS Agricultural Product Preservation Company Limited (CASS) has invested in a warehouse system to preserve fresh agricultural products. with the first fully automated CA gas control technology (all operation processes are managed by software and the storage and retrieval activities are operated by robots) in Vietnam, also known as “customer. 5-star hotel for fruit. Accordingly, in the warehouses of CASS, fresh vegetables and agricultural products will immediately fall into a state of hibernation, reducing respiration thanks to CA technology. Thereby, it helps to adjust the proportion of gas components in the warehouse in the direction of reducing oxygen to low and increasing Nitrogen up to over 90%. Thanks to that, each warehouse of CASS is like a giant nitrogen tank containing agricultural products, making fruits and agricultural products immediately reduce respiration, no more heat generation in the agricultural block. In addition, in the warehouse, the distance between the pallets is very uniform due to being stowed with a robot system, thereby facilitating easy ventilation. The ventilation fan system is arranged with thousands of points, reasonable wind speed is all over the warehouse, helping to exchange heat quickly and evenly throughout the warehouse. With the three above synchronous solutions, CASS can quickly cool down agricultural products without having to lower the temperature in the warehouse. This is the most important starting step of the preservation process, this step makes a valuable contribution to the effectiveness of prolonging the life of vegetables and agricultural products by many times by slowing down the ripening and aging process, without causing damage. for them. Many types of fruit are brought in by businesses for preservation using CA technology. Photo: Thanh Son. CA technology helps fruits and agricultural products to maintain freshness during storage, while inhibiting microbial growth that damages agricultural products as well as cross-contamination between consignments. Agricultural products stored in this environment can extend their life by 2-4 times compared to other methods. As for apples, CASS’s CA technology can last up to 12 months. This is an advanced method of preserving green and clean agricultural products, meeting the strict preservation standards of high-end markets. Ms. Quach Thi Le Chan, Director of CASS said, compared with conventional cold storage, preservation by CA technology has a higher cost. But in return, the CA technology brings many great benefits to agribusinesses, which is much greater than the extra cost of using this technology. First of all, preserving by CA technology helps produce only lose weight due to dehydration of 1-2% after about 10 days of storage, compared with 8-10% loss in conventional cold storage; failure rate is reduced from 15-30% to below 5%; quality decline rate (must sell at a discount), reduced from 30-40% to 2-10%. In particular, CA technology helps businesses increase brand reputation because the goods are always of stable quality, the source of goods is always ready, not passive when the market is in trouble such as ship jam, container jam … With such great advantages, the fully automatic gas adjustment technology of CASS has quickly attracted the attention of many businesses trading in fruit and agricultural products. Up to now, many kinds of fruits and agricultural products have been trusted by businesses to send to CASS’s warehouses such as beetroot, sweet potato, guava, coconut, pomelo, kumquat, lemon, dragon fruit, watermelon, melon. own, jackfruit, passion fruit … “CASSS’s model of preserving agricultural products using fully automated gas control technology is a pioneer and unique model currently in Vietnam. This is a breakthrough in logistics, contributing to capacity building. competition of Vietnamese vegetables, fruits and agricultural products because it prolongs storage time while still ensuring quality, thereby helping businesses to be more proactive in doing business “.