Total Produce BV has announced that a new Mobile Research Lab has completed its test phase, and will soon be carrying out a number of studies on Pink Lady apples and Williams pears.
The Mobile Research Lab is a laboratory that is built into a sea container and equipped with everything needed to effectively simulate influences like transport and storage.
The Lab has four small storage facilities of 1,000 litres each. These facilities have separate cooling systems that can be set and controlled individually under different atmospheric conditions.
According to the group, much time and energy has been devoted to testing the Mobile Research Lab's hardware and technical connection to the computer systems.
In the future, the facility will contribute to resolving problems with conditioning techniques, developing ripening concepts, and offering solutions to prevent shortages.
“We can also simulate all transport conditions in the mobile lab, enabling us to implement improvements throughout the transport chain,” explains Henk Nelisse, operational director and initiator of the mobile lab.
Total Produce said that the greatest advantage of the laboratory is that it is built into a 40ft container and, after the initial studies are conducted in the Netherlands, can be used anywhere in the world with relative ease, helping suppliers optimise their product.
Research studies were developed by Total Produce specialists and all test results are sent automatically to Rotterdam, where the supervision and analysis of the entire process take place.
