Easy to install, self-standing, and affordable cooling solutions for farms and cold chain operations up to 8,000 kg/day of cooling or 20,000 kg/day of storage.
The small standard cold rooms range is suitable for small farmers and out-growers, with small-medium scale operations and storage needs.
It is built with the best materials, components, and cooling technologies to enable the best possible cooling treatment for any perishable product and it comes with a coefficient performance that can be as high as twice as much as a reefer, allowing our customers to greatly reduce their energy bills.
They are designed and built to treat any fresh produce, ranging from fresh fruit, vegetables, and herbs.
Depending on your capacity and expansion needs, they are also designed to be modular, meaning that they can be expanded with your growing business needs. They come in standardized ranges of 15, 30 & 60 m², each with optional add-ons, including real-time data monitoring, humidifiers, solar kit, and more.
Models & dimensions
Materials & Components
- Built using high-quality ISOPAN high density polyurethane sandwich panels of 100 mm thick for walls & ceilings, ensuring superior durability and to maximize thermal insulation.
- It can be outdoor or indoor to better fit our customers’ needs. It only requires concrete flooring and a roof/shed.
- Materials allow for 15-20 years of useful life when units are provided with proper regular maintenance.
- It comes with a hinged door manually operated, with dimensions of 1,300 x 2,500 mm (WxH), and made with high density polyurethane foam, with high insulating performance
- Delivered with an electric kit composed of Internal LED lights, and cables and trunking for all sensors.
- Real-time monitoring system with unlimited data on temperature, humidity, energy consumption, voltage, door opening, CO₂, ethylene and more.
Cooling Equipment & Add-ons
- Configured and set to maximize specific perishables quality and to minimize energy bills.
- Cooling machine is a monoblock, with ranges from 5kW to 18kW of cooling power. Enables the best possible cooling treatment from the pre-cooling of 1,500 kg/cycle of high value crops to 22,000 kg of storage of palletised and already chilled produce. Room temperature +0°C to 5°C.
- Forced-air precooling machinery can be added for increasing the rate of cooling and dropping-down pulp temperature as quick as possible.
- Grid-tied solar kits can be added for ensuring up to 80% energy cost savings as well as up to 80% emissions reduction, depending on the grid mix. Four electric loads available.
- Humidifiers can be added to maintain the relative humidity in the cold room, minimizing dehydration & produce shrinkage.
- A single main board can be added for protecting and controlling circuits of all electronic equipment (cooling machinery, photovoltaic etc) with cable & trunking.
- A weather station can be added to monitor solar radiation, external temperature, humidity, rainfall sensor, all fixed on a pole.
Benefits
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Flexibility
You can position a cold room almost anywhere there is space, in-door or out-door, on-farm or close-to-farm. They can be adaptable for pre-cooling and cold storage.
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Versality
Designed and built to treat any fresh produce, with the possibility of setting temperatures, relative humidity, airflows and pressure for specific requirements, enabling increase in quality and safety of our clients.
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Modularity
The units can be expanded with the business when needed.
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Efficiency
High thermal insulation performance, energy efficient design and machinery with remote monitoring which reduces energy bills and OPEX
FAQs about Cold Rooms
Our small standard cold rooms range offers a capacity from a minimum of 9 pallets to a maximum of over 32 pallets
The smaller dimension of our cold rooms is 15m², with a storage capacity of approx. 9pallets (1.0 x 1.2 meter). It is equivalent to a 20’ reefer container, but with pre-cooling capabilities and is 40% more efficient. The following standard sizes are 30m² and 60m².
Our cold rooms are powered by three-phase electric power (for smaller units in the range single-phase is possible, up to 7 kW of cooling capacity). The power can be from grid only or from a mix of grid, solar and diesel back-up
Our cooling solutions can be designed and delivered for any use case, fresh fruit and vegetables, animal products (meat, poultry, fish, dairy), bakery, and non-food products such as pharmaceuticals. Inspirafarms cooling solutions can pre-cool, cold store, and frozen.
Reefer containers are designed to hold a specific temperature while in trucks or ships but they are not meant to precool. They miss the airflow control needed to treat fruit and vegetables. It is possible, but with a small fraction of the maximum allowed volume. Reefers available in most African countries have low coefficient performance compared to our equipment When they have been used for years, that coefficient performance lowers, bringing up the energy bill substantially. Read more in this article.
Yes, both chilled (above 0°C) and frozen (-18°C to -24°C).
Inspirafarms also delivers frozen projects from 0°C to -24°C. Our cooling solutions can be designed and delivered for any use case, fresh fruit and vegetables, animal products (meat, poultry, fish, dairy), bakery, and non-food products such as pharmaceuticals.
A three-phase grid connection, a concrete slab and an access road for a truck with a container trailer. The specifics about foundations, concrete work, slab insulation and finishing are operation and site specific. The concrete slab is part of the civil works and we therefore ask our clients to prepare before the deployment and assembly of our units. InspiraFarms provides guidance to customers on how to approach these civil works.
Our cold rooms are delivered containerized in a kit. Everything is delivered as part of the same consignment. From the structural part to the finishing and fittings. Following the site survey, a local engineer and contractor will be required to fit the cold room.
The ideal temperature of a cold room depends on the product, the stage of the supply chain and the target market. It is important to understand that temperature is not a key indicator of what is needed to treat fruit and vegetables. You can have a room with air temperature at 2°C and still have the pulp temperature of your fruit at 20°C for days.
It will depend on the size and capability of the cooling machine, for which we offer ranges from 8 to 100+kW of thermal power according to the type of crop and the cycle time. For example, cooling down one kg of a climacteric fruit might require as much as 10 times the energy it is required to keep it cool. Cold rooms for avocados for example require a lot of cooling power and a specific airflow. To cool down 10,000 kg of avocados, a minimum of 25 kW of cooling power is required. Enquire from us for more detailed answers for specific crops.
Yes, it does. All cold rooms need ventilation. Most of the ventilation is provided by daily door openings. InspiraFarms can provide air refreshment systems (with 80-85% heat recovery) if needed to avoid build up of specific gases.
Cold rooms are insulated by using sandwich panels. Our cold room panels are made of high density PUR (Polyurethane) to maximize the thermal insulation and grant our clients lower energy bills. Most companies in Africa are still using EPS (Styrofoam), but for the same thickness you get half the insulation from EPS. In addition, EPS is increasingly rejected by higher quality and value chains for the health and safety hazards they bring. Sub-optimal insulation can result in high energy bills, supply chain issues such as rejections and microbiological issues caused by condensation.
Yes, our modular cold rooms can be moved, although it’s a good idea to get the experts to do it. Trying to move the unit yourself would usually invalidate any warranty. The units are not mobile. For re-assembling you will need to have the civil works ready in the new site.
It depends on the size of the cold room, the range (out-door or in-door), and the cooling capacity. The small standard range is the most affordable line of cold rooms that InspiraFarms Cooling offers, ideal for small farmers and distributors.
We are mostly focused on African markets. All our cold rooms can be delivered to any country in the following regions: East Africa, West Africa & Southern Africa. We have cold rooms delivered in Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, Ghana, Benin, Morocco & South Africa. Also, we have delivered in Central & South America
Do you have questions or interested in starting a project?
Get in touch with our local team today!