Anecoop transports persimmons in smart passive container

On October 11, about 7,000 kilos of persimmons Bouquet departed from Carlet to Rungis (Paris), with a first stop in Saint Charles (Perpignan).

For the first time, 8 pallets were shipped in the smart passive container SmartEcoReefer from INPROUS-PRS. Anecoop and Sant Bernat de Carlet participated in this initiative, with the support of the European project TRAILS.

Currently, the logistics sector faces several challenges to optimize the transport of perishable products, such as maintaining temperature and dependence on energy supply during travel.

Each year, the impact of refrigeration containers on import and export operations to and from Europe to the Middle East and Africa reaches 600 million tons of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere and a consumption of 1.2 billion kWh.

On the other hand, EU food waste reaches 80 million tons, which corresponds to 160 kilos per person per year, valued at 143,000 million euros. This is explained by the unreliability of the conventional cold chain, which equals an insufficient quality of conservation in means of transport destined for long distances of highly perishable products.

SmartEcoReefer was created with the aim of introducing a comprehensive technological solution to the sector that guarantees customers the services necessary for controlled temperature logistics.

The objective of the Trails project is to develop a cross-border multimodal transport pilot capable of passing long distances, to demonstrate that this new container is adapted to the rail transport of products from the fruit and vegetable sector in positive cold temperatures to favor the modal shift, save CO2 and unblock roads.

Transportes SALVA, the railway company NOVATRANS and Transportes MESGUEN are the logistics partners of this pilot.

The pilot test has to show in real conditions the advantages of this type of container: if it is autonomous from 12 to 25 days depending on the equipment; if there occur any mechanical problems; if it achieves an 81.9% reduction in energy consumption; if it reduces the carbon footprint; if it is adapted to the use of the railway; if the type of cold generated by the container limits bacterial and viral proliferation, and if it maintains greater freshness and quality of the product.

On a daily basis, about 15,000 trucks pass through the Spanish-French border, 40% of which are refrigerators that transport products in negative or positive cold. So, it is a strategic step for the French and Spanish economy.

Today, 90% of these products are transported by road. The modal shift to the railroad is not easy due to the lack of railway electricity supply, also due to the discontinuity of the Mediterranean corridor and the lack of technical resources.

With Reefer containers, agri-food products can be transported safely and without technical complications. This was certified in the summer of 2020 by the Institut de Recerca i Tecnología Agroalimentàries - IRTA.

This project won in the recent Ports 4.0 call for Puertos del Estado, and has certain technical characteristics:

- Adaptation and application of the proprietary cold technology patented by PRS Technology in multimodal containers of 20, 40 or 45 feet to be applied in a distribution and logistics system of perishable products at a controlled temperature, particularly with a transit time of 20-25 days. Thanks to the PCM plates, the cold is released little by little, allowing the products to be kept in negative or positive cold for 12 days or even more.

- Research, development and application of innovations related to Artificial Intelligence, through which it is expected to acquire new knowledge, based on analysis of various scenarios for the modeling of technical behavior of transport and identification of abnormalities; to monitor, manage and capture data from sensors and Early Warning systems to identify risks during transport, and Big Data architecture.

- Reaction to unforeseen anomalies almost in real time, thanks to the SmartEcoReefer;

- Application of Blockchain technology to the agri-food market;

- Development of modules based on interoperable APIs;

- Development of dashboards and other interfaces.

For more information about Anecoop, visit their website