Fruits and vegetables are grown in abundance in India, owing to the different landscapes and weather conditions across the country. Our country produces a variety of F&V annually, with the demand being more than the supply as they are a staple diet in most households.
With fruit and vegetables being temperature sensitive items with a limited shelf life, their transportation needs to be temperature controlled with no hindrances. One small issue, and the consignment can get damaged leading to a loss of finances and food waste to many. Food waste, as we have discussed earlier, is not Ideal as it can lead to the emission of GHGs.
So, let’s take a look at some of the issues which the F&V industry faces. One of the main issues is the packaging. When the items are not packaged correctly using the right temperature or material, they stand a chance of facing damage through external variables such as temperature, surrounding atmosphere, or transportation delays. Perishables cannot be taken for granted when being transported, whether it be a longer distance or just a home delivery.
With most people opting for online deliveries, the demand for home deliveries has increased. This may be a little expensive for most retailers as selecting the right packaging can be expensive and challenging. This means a higher risk of contamination on delivery.
Another very important aspect to look at is technology. With the lack of technology such as temperature monitoring, it gets difficult to constantly keep an eye on the consignment to ensure that there is no change in temperature, which results in only realizing any damage towards the end of the supply chain which again, leads to a huge loss in finances. If the consignment is still delivered, it will lead to no sales contributing to a food wastage again.
Tessol has a number of years of experience when it comes to the delivery of fruit and vegetables. We have worked with esteemed clients such as Sam Berry exotics, Satvik foods and Mevedir. Our solutions are highly reliable and have been tried and tested successfully numerous times. Let’s take a look at our solutions.
For fruits and vegetables, we use our proprietary PCM solutions for tertiary, secondary and last mile distribution. For our tertiary and secondary distribution, we use Nova chill trucks powered by PLUG N CHILL technology and active and passive zenboxes. Here, a compressor is placed on the truck and the PCMs placed inside the compartment are charged till the desired temperature has been reached!
The trucks are compartmentalised into frozen, chilled and ambient with a temperature range of -20c to +15c, and 2 to 8 C, which is ideal for the transportation of fruits and vegetables.
For the last mile delivery and intercity delivery, our PCM bags and cartridges are ideal. We charge the PCM at our warehouse to the desired temperature, and then line it inside the bag for the consignment to be placed in. Once placed, the consignment remains at the desired temperature for up to 8 to 10 hours. Here, we also provide a real time monitoring system, called TAMsys, which monitors the consignment temperature throughout the delivery chain for any drops!
