When loading soft fruit at the pack houses Southern Spain ,France or Italy I was always told to start running the fridge at the ambient temperature or the temperature of the fruit as it was loaded . When finished loading and setting off drop the temperature on the fridge by 2 degrees (ie outside temp 24 deg and the fruit at a similar temp set fridge at 22 degrees ) then every 2-3 hours drop the temperature by another 2 degrees until it was at +14 /12/10 or8 or what ever the end customer required. This kept the fruit from chilling to fast and grapes / oranges etc from bursting and destroying the load .
Anyone else used or been given this advice because it always worked for me
UKtramp:
Odd isn’t it when someone like me who is an Industrial refrigeration engineer and a consultant in this field that has worked world wide and highly regarded knows a lot less than someone who tows a reefer and is more of an expert. I have designed and worked on some of the most complex refrigeration plants on the planet, +4.0C is a very special temperature in refrigeration and as Franglais has pointed out that hydrogen bonding is in H2O. The human body is made up of 75% water, an awful lot of food stuffs hold water content and so the 4.oC magic number is very relevant.Industrial refrigeration is my field and I can tell you anything you want to know about it. I even posted all of my refrigeration qualifications on here at one time including my gold card status and ammonia handling certs. Cold storage plants do indeed freeze from fresh in large blast freezers holding 20 pallets or more, then placed into the cold storage warehouse set at usually -20. The frozen pallets still hold heat and it takes a lot of energy to hold the huge amounts of pallets frozen.
If you place pallets in the cold storage warehouse at a less temperature than the set temperature then you get problems with imbalance and the compressors work harder than they should work and using huge amounts of energy to pull these pallets down to temp. All depends on the numbers here but it takes aprox 18 hrs to freeze a batch of 20 pallets of meat for example to freeze -18 to the core. Once again this all depends on water and salt content of the produce. I developed a way of freezing meat down to -10 which is the temp needed for factory cutters and slicers to effectively slice frozen meat. Any way carry on regardless with all your own theories, I am sure you will be right in your own ways.
Can you repost all that stuff again or share a link, just to confirm you are what you say
beefy4605:
When loading soft fruit at the pack houses Southern Spain ,France or Italy I was always told to start running the fridge at the ambient temperature or the temperature of the fruit as it was loaded . When finished loading and setting off drop the temperature on the fridge by 2 degrees (ie outside temp 24 deg and the fruit at a similar temp set fridge at 22 degrees ) then every 2-3 hours drop the temperature by another 2 degrees until it was at +14 /12/10 or8 or what ever the end customer required. This kept the fruit from chilling to fast and grapes / oranges etc from bursting and destroying the load .
Anyone else used or been given this advice because it always worked for me
Good advice under those circumstances, stops the fruit spoiling.
Bigtruck3:
UKtramp:
Odd isn’t it when someone like me who is an Industrial refrigeration engineer and a consultant in this field that has worked world wide and highly regarded knows a lot less than someone who tows a reefer and is more of an expert. I have designed and worked on some of the most complex refrigeration plants on the planet, +4.0C is a very special temperature in refrigeration and as Franglais has pointed out that hydrogen bonding is in H2O. The human body is made up of 75% water, an awful lot of food stuffs hold water content and so the 4.oC magic number is very relevant.Industrial refrigeration is my field and I can tell you anything you want to know about it. I even posted all of my refrigeration qualifications on here at one time including my gold card status and ammonia handling certs. Cold storage plants do indeed freeze from fresh in large blast freezers holding 20 pallets or more, then placed into the cold storage warehouse set at usually -20. The frozen pallets still hold heat and it takes a lot of energy to hold the huge amounts of pallets frozen.
If you place pallets in the cold storage warehouse at a less temperature than the set temperature then you get problems with imbalance and the compressors work harder than they should work and using huge amounts of energy to pull these pallets down to temp. All depends on the numbers here but it takes aprox 18 hrs to freeze a batch of 20 pallets of meat for example to freeze -18 to the core. Once again this all depends on water and salt content of the produce. I developed a way of freezing meat down to -10 which is the temp needed for factory cutters and slicers to effectively slice frozen meat. Any way carry on regardless with all your own theories, I am sure you will be right in your own ways.
Can you repost all that stuff again or share a link, just to confirm you are what you say
5 pages here
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=148971&hilit=gold
dieseldave:
manalishi:
Painful memories of my euro fridge days coming back to haunt me here.My earlier little story was from my Euro fridge days when my boss pulled ‘general’ for Laros, but I also did a lot of direct work for another firm when we carried peaches from Italy . The carrying temp for those was the 4 deg C that UKT mentioned, but there were some who either didn’t know or didn’t care, so I saw plenty of iced peaches on the MAFF bay in Dover.
Other horrors from the MAFF bay include a time when my load of ambient Spanish onions in a tilt were required to be inspected. On that occasion, I got my first sight of frozen lettuces, which were instantly condemned by MAFF!!
manalishi:
There should be a qualification at some level for this work I always figured,obviously not ADR level grade but maybe a specialist component of the CPC farceathon.I’ve always wondered about this too because we have the Food Hygene Act and SCOPA etc, so there are plenty of Regs governing the food industry. My guess is that the blue-chip companies have some sort of in-house arrangements.
I wasn’t on an in-house fleet, so the only training I got from bosses was… how to start/stop the engine. How to check oil and water in the engine. How to set the temperature and instructed to always carry at the temperature specified by the customer on the CMR. Oh, I nearly forgot what the boss said would happen if I ever ran the fridge out of diesel!
I’m not convinced that anybody could get a whole 7hr DCPC module out of ‘fridge driver essentials’ or some other wording for a course title, but a 3.5hr option as part of a modular offering might be workable.
The problem with ideas for training is that no matter how useful it might be, there’s the issue of provision costs Vs. uptake.
Hard to disagree, a full module would be excessive,but given any of us could in theory end up pulling a reefer at some point, an overview of the refrigeration principles would be surely more pertinent than the garbage egg-sucking farrago we endure every 4 years? I will wouldn’t be at all surprised if more evolved countries,Scandinavia for example have a more rigorous approach to the fundamentals of food logistics,rather than blightys back of the envelope,■■■■ it and see type of mindset that many of us have experienced.
manalishi:
Hard to disagree, a full module would be excessive,but given any of us could in theory end up pulling a reefer at some point, an overview of the refrigeration principles would be surely more pertinent than the garbage egg-sucking farrago we endure every 4 years? I will wouldn’t be at all surprised if more evolved countries,Scandinavia for example have a more rigorous approach to the fundamentals of food logistics,rather than blightys back of the envelope,■■■■ it and see type of mindset that many of us have experienced.
It is quite noticeable the amount of attention paid to the temperature of a product when delivering in Europe compared to the UK, have delivered stuff to the UK that if it was being tipped in Europe would have been rejected.
Mazzer2:
It is quite noticeable the amount of attention paid to the temperature of a product when delivering in Europe compared to the UK, have delivered stuff to the UK that if it was being tipped in Europe would have been rejected.
Very true, here in the UK if any food produce is refused a delivery for temperature reasons, the warehouse where it was brought from has a very big problem on its hands. It is extremely expensive to dispose of rejected food especially meat products. The rejected load has to be stored in a quarantined area of the cold store facility. This facility is usually quite a small area, no other food stuffs must be touching or within 6 feet of this. It can take up to 6 months in some instances to get the necessary paperwork from DEFRA and their vets to authorise the disposal of the meat. On this basis alone you would expect the transport to be very stringent as Supermarket contracts are very valuable. Interestingly meat transported to China is the highest stringent controls of all. They send out reps from China on unannounced visits to ensure the controls are kept to a high standard. Supermarket reps visits are always pre arranged.
UKtramp:
Mazzer2:
It is quite noticeable the amount of attention paid to the temperature of a product when delivering in Europe compared to the UK, have delivered stuff to the UK that if it was being tipped in Europe would have been rejected.Very true, here in the UK if any food produce is refused a delivery for temperature reasons, the warehouse where it was brought from has a very big problem on its hands. It is extremely expensive to dispose of rejected food especially meat products. The rejected load has to be stored in a quarantined area of the cold store facility. This facility is usually quite a small area, no other food stuffs must be touching or within 6 feet of this. It can take up to 6 months in some instances to get the necessary paperwork from DEFRA and their vets to authorise the disposal of the meat. On this basis alone you would expect the transport to be very stringent as Supermarket contracts are very valuable. Interestingly meat transported to China is the highest stringent controls of all. They send out reps from China on unannounced visits to ensure the controls are kept to a high standard. Supermarket reps visits are always pre arranged.
Would the logical destination for rejected meat be a fast track pet food end point?
manalishi:
Would the logical destination for rejected meat be a fast track pet food end point?
I agree it is a logical thought, alas it is not the case in most circumstances. I suppose it is only fair to the animals that their food chain is protected also. If there is a risk of salmonella or any other contamination then the meat is destroyed. Likewise you cannot give the stuff away either to a charity or good cause. I am sure that in some instances certain produce may be released at some stage into some other food chain but certainly not meat when it will be deemed unfit for human consumption. It is a very costly and complex process that any cold storage facility dreads. If chilled gets rejected then that can simply be put back into the food chain provided that it never reached its critical control point. The whole process of rejection in meats is quite rare though. It obviously happens but not as regular as made out. The International destinations are far better regulated and controlled to a much higher degree, the example of reefer ships are very much better controlled than a reefer trip up the road to Tesco. Checks are conducted hourly and temperature sensors are monitored constantly.
^^^^^ we have 6 trucks and 12 trailers dedicated to pet food movements. The hoops they have to jump through are far more stringent than what the rest of us do for human consumption foodstuffs.
the maoster:
^^^^^ we have 6 trucks and 12 trailers dedicated to pet food movements. The hoops they have to jump through are far more stringent than what the rest of us do for human consumption foodstuffs.
And vets are actually much higher qualified than your average GP. The point you make Maoster is indeed how it is. I would sometimes be happier eating dog food than some of the rubbish we eat. Pet food is very highly regulated.
the maoster:
^^^^^ we have 6 trucks and 12 trailers dedicated to pet food movements. The hoops they have to jump through are far more stringent than what the rest of us do for human consumption foodstuffs.
Is that to protect the pets?
Or is that to follow food unfit for humans, and prevent it entering the human food chain?
^^^^^^ at a guess I’d say to protect the pets. The trailers are marked up completely differently and whilst theoretically it would be possible to load food for human consumption onto them it just doesn’t happen.
The inside of the pet food trailers are scrubbed and disinfected to within an inch of their lives, whereas the ones used for human food transport are quite frankly embarrassing.
Food used for pet food is not unfit for human consumption, the pet food industry is huge and they usually only get one chance to sell their products as the No1 brand. If a dog turns up it’s nose to a particular brand of dog food because it doesn’t like it, the owners will never buy that product again and neither will anyone else. The cuts of meat used in pet foods are as good if not better than for human consumption. Be a pointless exercise and a bad business move from the pet food manufacturers to use inferior ingredients. Some ingredients used in pet foods might not be to our tastes so they do use certain products that we would not normally eat, but the quality of that ingredient is of a high quality.
beefy4605:
When loading soft fruit at the pack houses Southern Spain ,France or Italy I was always told to start running the fridge at the ambient temperature or the temperature of the fruit as it was loaded . When finished loading and setting off drop the temperature on the fridge by 2 degrees (ie outside temp 24 deg and the fruit at a similar temp set fridge at 22 degrees ) then every 2-3 hours drop the temperature by another 2 degrees until it was at +14 /12/10 or8 or what ever the end customer required. This kept the fruit from chilling to fast and grapes / oranges etc from bursting and destroying the load .
Anyone else used or been given this advice because it always worked for me
Always did similar but put the fridge on defrost when fully loaded because I was told that running it whilst loading in hot weather caused a lot of condensation in and around the freezer unit and this could freeze up causing the rear pallets to cook due to having no airflow and the front ones to be too cold
eurotrans:
put the fridge on defrost when fully loaded because I was told that running it whilst loading in hot weather caused a lot of condensation in and around the freezer unit and this could freeze up causing the rear pallets to cook due to having no airflow and the front ones to be too cold
Frost will develop on the condenser coils when loading in the summer, they should not ice up enough to stop airflow though unless you are at minus temps. Not a great idea to put a fridge on defrost when fully loaded unless you have a serious problem. Under normal circumstances you should only ever defrost the reefer before or after the load.
Grumpy old truckers.
Be in a fridge soon enough wont yous.
Ambient temp wont matter.
UKtramp:
Under normal circumstances you should only ever defrost the reefer before or after the load.
Why do…
Reefers loaded or empty automatically run defrost programs then?
yourhavingalarf:
UKtramp:
Under normal circumstances you should only ever defrost the reefer before or after the load.Why do…
Reefers loaded or empty automatically run defrost programs then?
Thats exactly why you don’t run a manual defrost!!!
UKtramp:
eurotrans:
put the fridge on defrost when fully loaded because I was told that running it whilst loading in hot weather caused a lot of condensation in and around the freezer unit and this could freeze up causing the rear pallets to cook due to having no airflow and the front ones to be too coldFrost will develop on the condenser coils when loading in the summer, they should not ice up enough to stop airflow though unless you are at minus temps. Not a great idea to put a fridge on defrost when fully loaded unless you have a serious problem. Under normal circumstances you should only ever defrost the reefer before or after the load.
Sorry, but which coils?
Our man was clearly talking about the inside of the trailer which wouldn’t be the condenser but that other major component that even a mere mortal can differentiate between.