Project Description

Ausmoz Farm holdings is a large commercial farm located in Manica Province of Mozambique, about 40 km from the Zimbabwean border. Its main products are litchis and avocados for export.

Ausmoz harvested volumes of litchis are increasing rapidly during the last years. About 90 tonnes was exported as fresh product in 2020, an increase from about 20 tonnes in 2017. They are expecting exponential growth in their litchi and avocado harvests in the next few years.

cold rooms and packhouse for litchis

The client challenge

Ausmoz initially used refrigerated containers to establish the cold chain prior to export. This worked well when volumes were initially low, with about 20 tonnes over a 20-day period of harvest and shipment. However, when volumes increased, from the 2018 harvest, these facilities were proven not to be adequate. In consequence, the fruit was not effectively cooled prior to shipment, and much of it developed mould or other features making it un-marketable resulting in very substantial losses. The main issue was the lack of proper pre-cooling immediately after harvest.

Cold rooms for fruits in Moz

The InspiraFarms solution

Ausmoz invested in an InspiraFarms modular and pre-fabricated cold room of 60 square meters, with pre-cooling capabilities through air-forced cooling and a humidifier, including IoT and data systems. The cold room has a capacity of storing up to 32 pallets or about 20 tons of produce. The forced air rapidly dropped the pulp temperature of the fruit ensuring optimal quality. The pre-cooler also allowed drop of temperature to 1-2 degrees Celsius, allowing them to load reefers directly from the farm, which were then trucked to the port for export.

The success story

Since they installed the cold room, they have had no losses. Both air-freight and sea-freight shipments have arrived with the cold chain properly maintained. They use air-freight early in the season when prices for fruit are higher, but after that they use sea-freight due to lower cost. Pre- cooling the fruit quickly and to the right temperature allowed them to maintain optimal quality and significantly reduced losses resulting to high praise for the quality of our produce.

Ausmoz Farm holdings current markets are in the UK and Europe and are seeking investment to expand. They need to treble their cooling capacity in the next two years to cater for increased volumes as their orchards mature.

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