Post harvest handling: Blueberries
Family Tree Farms
Industry Practice
- Blueberries manually harvested
- Blueberries manually harvested
- Harvested fruit is placed into shallow totes
- Full totes stacked on flatbed truck or trailer
- Load is defined by XX number of pallets
- Load is transported to a field cooler
- Fruit placed in field coolers for XX hours
- Refrigerated truck moves fruit from field cooler to packinghouse
- Fruit is washed, graded, and packed
- Fruit is stored in cold storage
The additional step decreases the number of hours between when the berry leaves the bush until its ripening process is slowed down with the use of forced air cooling of the fruit.
- Harvested fruit is placed into shallow totes
- Totes are stacked at end of row on flat bed truck
- Load is defined by XX number of pallets
- Completed load is transported to the packinghouse
- Fruit is placed in forced air cooling tunnels to remove field heat
- Fruit temperature cooled, then run on packing/grading line
- Fruit is stored in cold storage
Fruit harvest until cooled, averages 4-6 hours with this process.
- Fruit is shipped via refrigerated truck
- Fruit is shipped via refrigerated truck
Field Cooler infrastructure:
Number of coolers
Number of tunnels
Capacity
Number of refrigerated trucks
Result of the change