Information for fruit and vegetables business in CIS
International seminar on fruit and vegetable post harvest handling and storing was held in Crimea
The questions of post harvest handling and long-term storing of fruit and vegetable commodities are very important, this way the producers' profits can be increased significantly. That's why on October 4th, 2005, the Agricultural Marketing Project conducted the seminar on fruit and vegetable post harvest handling and storing in Crimean agritechnological college, and also on the basis of Ros-MTE LLC and the agricultural service cooperative Fruits of Crimea.
The participants of the seminar were able to see the modern practices of fruit, vegetable and grape storing, post harvest handling methods for the agricultural products. The companies - suppliers of the equipment and technologies of produce storing shared their experience in the peculiarities of cold chamber construction and cooling system installation. The event was interesting not only for small and medium producers, but also for joint and national enterprises and companies.
Josef Brett, the representative of Czech company BREMATECH specially arrived from Prague to participate in the seminar; he talked about his company that supplies equipment and constructs CA chambers. Only in Poland more than 100 cold storages of this company have been put in operation recently, that proves the dynamic development of BREMATECH company and confirms high quality of the supplied equipment.
In the second half of the day the seminar participants attended at once two grand openings of cold chambers constructed due to financial assistance of the Agricultural Marketing Project in Ukraine.
One of the chambers is owned by LLC Ros-MTE; the company supplies to McDonalds lettuce produced by the company independently or by the neighboring Crimean farmers. Brought on line chamber will let the producers cool and store up to 40 tons of produce. To set up this chamber, the Project purchased equipment worth more than USD 11,000.
Two other cold chambers in Fruits of Crimea coop are designed for up to 120 tons of produce. They will decrease significantly storage losses, and also extend the sales markets. To set up this chamber, the Project purchased equipment worth USD 25,000.
All the event participants got the handout materials; they appreciated much the informative content and the practical value of the provided information. Agricultural producers were especially grateful for the provided opportunity to communicate personally with the specialists of the companies that install cooling equipment.
A considerable part of the reports on the second international conference "Fruits and Vegetables of Ukraine 2005" will be devoted to the produce post harvest handling and storing. The manual on modern fruit and vegetable packing is included into the conference materials, as well as the information related to the PHH and storing technologies.