Wish Farms’ berry quality has a lot to do with the varieties we grow, the weather we get from mother nature and experience of our farmers. However, there is one aspect that can’t be ignored: cooling. After strawberries are harvested and transported from the farm, we have to bring their temperature down to 34 oF. This is vital to maintaining freshness, because it has been said that you lose a day of shelf life for every hour a berry stays warm! We can’t just put them in a cold room, they must be force cooled quickly. Nothing does that better than our new state of the art MACS (Modular Automated Cooling System).
Berries are loaded on to the massive machine’s conveyor belt and they are taken through four different chambers. Each chamber zone has a different air flow, which cools the pallet more consistently. It accomplishes this three times faster with 40% less energy than a traditional tunnel cooler. We are proud to say Wish Farms was the first berry company on the east coast to acquire a MACS. It is a big investment for our company, but quality and freshness will always be a priority!
Click here to see all the other ways we are investing in sustainable practices.
