Stemilt Shows ANUK its Cold Chain Management for Cherries with Hydrocooling
WENATCHEE, WA - With the Northwest cherry season underway, Stemilt Growers is nearing the peak of harvest with delicious fruit and continued innovation in the supply chain. It’s been warm in Washington State, and one of the ways that the company consistently maintains cherry quality is by focusing on maintaining a very tight cold chain from field to final destination.
Check out the video above for an in-depth exclusive look at Stemilt's new technology.
“It’s critical that we reduce the temperature of cherries as soon after harvest as possible, and investing in on-farm hydrocooling has allowed us to do that. We get a head start on the cold chain process and deliver cherries to our packing facilities at a temperature that helps maximize fruit freshness, firmness, and flavors,” said Stemilt Marketing Director Roger Pepperl.
This starts at the farm with mobile hydro cooling. During this process, the goal is to hydrocool cherries at the farm and within an hour after harvest. Hydrocooling brings down the pulp temperature of cherries by drenching the fruit in cold water for several minutes. For Stemilt, hydrocooling starts the critical cold chain process for cherries.
From here, Stemilt cherries are transported to nearby packing facilities where they are packed on lines equipped with in-line hydrocooling. Once in their final pack and on a pallet, Stemilt’s cherries go through a final cool down process before they are shipped on refrigerated trucks. Stemilt is doing this in a new way this season with recent investments in engineered fans and proprietary tunneling processes. The Engineered fans are designed to cool cherries more efficiently and consistently throughout each individual box and pallet as a whole.
“We’re constantly working to develop and tweak what we call our ‘recipe’ for cooling cherries in order to consistently deliver fresh, firm, and high-quality cherries to consumers worldwide. The introduction of jet cooler—which are specifically engineered for forced air cooling of produce—is helping us in our goal to deliver an even fresher product by considerably bringing down the time it takes us to cool cherries prior to shipping,” said Pepperl. “Freshness goes hand-in-hand with the cold chain and is the primary factor in our ability to provide consumers with a great eating experience, and keep them coming back to the store for more cherries.”
Knowing that for every hour a cherry spends over 40 degrees equates to a day of shelf life lost at retail, the cold chain process is top priority at Stemilt every day. From field to final destination, the company’s efforts in maintaining the tightest cold chain for cherries in the industry is all about putting shelf life back in the retailer’s pocket in order to consistently deliver a dessert eating experience to consumers.
