Dole Fruit Company
Success Story
Nowadays, the piña miel (honey pineapple) is the most sold pineapple variety in supermarkets. But although it seems that this sweet fruit has been on our tables all our lives, the truth is that its insertion in the market has been a experimentation, innovation and perseverance story.
When, in 2002, Dole, the world's largest fruit and vegetable distributor began growing piña miel (honey pineapple) in Honduras, there was no adequate method and cooling system for this crop. It was at that moment when Froztec was integrated into this story. Since then, we have written a story of success and expansion of piña miel (honey pineapple) throughout the world.
THE RESULT: TO CONVERT AN UNKNOWN FRUIT IN THE MOST CONSUMED VARIETY EVERYWHERE
The refrigeration system for piña miel (honey pineapple) implemented by Froztec allows Dole to increase up to 33% more of its production without buying new equipment or increase its investment.
2002: the origin of a cooling system forpiña miel (honey pineapple)
Designing a cooling system from scratch has been one of Froztec's most exciting challenges. When we started working with Dole, the physiology of piña miel (honey pineapple) was not yet established, so its ideal cutoff date was still unknown.
To establish the best conditions for cutting and cooling the fruit, it was necessary to implement a pre-cooling tunnel test, in which we worked for more than a year together with physiologists until the expected result was achieved.
This design was implemented successfully in the farms:
• Zoila Emiliana
• El Maizal
Together, these two farms produced 320 tons of piña miel (honey pineapple) a day, the equivalent of 32 fruit container trucks with export quality.
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2002 to 2005: the Costa Rica chapter
Due to this successful implementation, Dole granted us the contract to implement the cooling system of the farms and its affiliates in Costa Rica, where we consolidated the harvest and refrigeration of piña miel (honey pineapple) in Latin America, reaching a daily production of 400 tons in the farms:
- Finca El Bosque. (1800 hectares farm of land cultivated by pineapples)
- El tremedal
- Nueva Verruga
2007: El bosque and el Muelle.
The implementation of the refrigeration system for piña miel (honey pineapple) in El Bosque and El Muelle farms added another 400 tons production per day to Dole. When it arrived, all the farms in Ecuador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Honduras, the production of piña miel (honey pineapple) already exceeded 1120 tons per day.
The system: a design with Froztec's signature
The delicate nature of this variety of pineapples and the thinness of its skin required an adequate control of relative humidity and temperature, because at a certain temperature, there is a risk of damaging it or changing the color and flavor of the fruit .
On the other hand, it was extremely important to cool as quickly as possible after being harvested. The pre-cooling should be done in less than six hours after cutting to achieve 10 days of shelf life.
Our design, made specifically for this fruit, consisted of:
California forced air tunnels for 20 panels.
Parallel compressor rack
Centrifugal fan and high pressure axial tubes
Coils for capacity control
Cooling automation
