During the summer months, roadside fruit and produce stands pop up almost as fast as wildflowers after a rain storm. Many of those farmers sell out of their garden fresh wares, but what about the ones that don’t do so well? For them, adding ozone generators to storage areas is the perfect solution.
Ozone generators can free storage room air of odors and ethylene. That’s important because both cross-contamination odors and ethylene can impact the quality and life of summer fruits and vegetables. So by reducing those two things, farmers may be able to prolong the shelf life of foods until they are able to make a sale. Some of the foods known to respond well to ozone generator use are pears, mushrooms, apples, oranges and broccoli.
Many first-rate ozone generators on the market today come outfitted with built-in timers and automatic shut off/on capabilities. Thus, farmers could place those types of ozone generators into storage areas of all different sizes. Afterward, they could set the timers and leave to attend to other agricultural tasks. When the ozone generators finish clearing the air, the farmers could then return to the storage areas and remove their wares as needed.
Any foods not sold quickly enough could also be handled in other ways. For example, farmers may want to convert those items into jellies, jams, pickles, soups and frozen foods. The leftovers could also be placed into organic recycling bins, dehydrated or used as animal feed. It really all depends on which items are leftover and what condition they are in at the time of disposal.
To learn more about modern day ozone generators and how they can prolong the shelf life of foods, please contact us. We can go over which ozone generators would be ideal for food processing businesses and small-scale, seasonal farmers.