Sielsa, the largest produce distribution warehouse in Costa Rica, has integrated three Purfresh Cold Storage systems as a key component of the company’s new state-of-the-art facility.
The warehouse, which opened in April 2010, will house multiple commodities including bananas, pineapples, and melons for export, as well as imported apples, stone fruit, and table grapes. Sielsa installed Purfresh Cold Storage to reduce mold and diseases, control ripening, and eliminate cross-contamination from one company’s product to another.
“When we committed to building a new distribution center, our main objective was to create a leading-edge facility by imploring proven industry-leading solutions that would increase efficiencies, enhance food safety, and protect produce quality,” said Richard Loeb, president of Sielsa.
The patented Purfresh Cold Storage technology assures food safety and quality combining a scalable, plug-and-play ozone-based system specifically engineered for refrigerated storage environments with Purfresh Intellipur online analytics. This information service includes environmental sensing, web-based monitoring, alerting, data reporting, and analysis along with remote control and diagnostics. These advanced technologies allow Sielsa to regulate the ripening process and control decay while maintaining overall fruit quality in its controlled-atmosphere rooms.
Sielsa’s new facility, which contains more than 18,000 cubic meters of refrigerated storage with 12 shipping docks, is 10 kilometers from Limon, Costa Rica, where more than 95% of Costa Rican produce is imported and exported. Most of the fresh produce stored at Sielsa’s facility will be shipped to the United States and Europe. Besides controlling temperature, humidity, and providing real-time alerts, Sielsa can cool down field temperature produce within 24 hours.
Recently, Purfresh announced research results that demonstrated that controlled supplementation of ozone in cold storage conditions was able to kill and control the spread of foodborne pathogens such as Salmonella by more than 99.997%, Listeria monocytogenes by more than 99.999%, and E. coli O157:H7 by as much as 99.9%.
For more information, visit www.purfresh.com.
