Delays in cooling strawberries after harvest can significantly reduce fruit quality and shelf life, particularly in warm conditions. The Produce Quality Centre (PQC) is working with industry partners to develop in-field cooling solutions that enable faster and more efficient temperature control.
Harvesting, packing and transporting strawberries from the field to packhouse facilities can take several hours, during which time fruit quality can rapidly decline if cooling is delayed. To address this, the PQC is part of a consortium developing a portable in-field chiller designed to provide rapid and efficient cooling immediately after harvest.
The consortium, led by JDCooling Ltd, includes Scorpion Vision Ltd and Berry Gardens Ltd. Funded by Innovate UK, the project is now in its third season, with ongoing trials to refine cooling performance and optimise handling processes.
An experimental cooling system has been established at PQC facilities to support detailed studies, leading to the development of the CoolBerry rig. Initially designed to chill a single pallet, the system has now been expanded to handle three pallets, with the larger version currently undergoing its first round of testing.
As well as improving fruit quality and extending storage life, the CoolBerry rig enables whole-pallet loading and unloading. This reduces the need for repeated pallet handling, offering significant labour savings—an important advantage given ongoing workforce pressures.
For more information on this work, please contact Richard Colgan at