COFFEE & COCOA WAREHOUSING COMPANY BELGIUM
Problem
Coffee and cocoa beans are traditionally shipped in jute bags from tropical origins to higher latitudes destinations. Handling jute bags is time consuming, involves hard labor and takes too much room, meaning inefficiency on logistics.
Expectation
To speed up the loading and discharging process and maximize the loading volume.
Solutions & results
Vacsac is a product from VacQPack designed to answer the handling challenge. It’s a big bag with a glued liner inside of rectangular shape to fit the container’s measurements requirements.
By placing 10 of such Vacsacs’ the container can hold 17 mt of cocoa compared to the 12,5 mt of the traditional way.
Apart from the lower transport costs, the cargo gets also protected from moisture (condensation) and insect development.
MAJOR COCOA TRADER / WAREHOUSER
Problem
Insect control & quality conservation of cocoa beans for longtime storage in flexible packaging.
Expectations
High quality conservation for at least 7 months. Curative & Organic control of insect infestation; prevention from mould and aflatoxins, while keeping its organoleptic quality.
Solutions & results
The exercise passed through the inception of all stadia of different insects that tackles stored products. The product was cocoa beans in bags of 10Kg (140 un.) involved with VacQPack seven layer and gas tight liner. Vacuum was applied alternatively with flush of CO2 (in random concentrations) for a modified atmosphere packaging.
The testing period happened for 7 months and samples were taken every week for evaluation on infestation growth and for lab quality analysis.
The samples flushed with CO2 showed no more infestation at the end of two weeks. The only vacuumed samples (without artificial injection CO2) displayed no insects after eight weeks, purely due to vacuum (low oxygen content) and to residual CO2 natural release from the beans.
Organoleptic quality was not prejudiced by this treatment. In fact, the sensory quality of the beans was guaranteed as the original.
COFFEE & COCOA BEANS EXPORTER PERU
Problem
VacQPack ran trials on coffee and cocoa beans in Peru 2016 to prove that it was up to its promise, related to logistics optimization and bio preservation for long storage conditions of coffee and cocoa beans.
Expectations
To test VacQPack packaging solution against bad atmospheric conditions and to access the potential cost savings on handling, transport and storage.
There was a known infestation and, once controlled the level of moisture, the option was to apply CO2, achieve an oxygen level below 10% at kernel temperature of 24C.
Applying this strategy, VacQPack expected eggs to hatch and all bugs to be eliminated within four weeks.
Solutions & results
During nine months the vacuumed and controlled atmosphere package was regularly monitored. Samples of both coffee and cocoa beans were collected and analyzed by their quality lab. The results revealed that through the trial period no condensation occurred or all moths was found dead. The original sensitive features were kept and without using any chemicals.
On the other hand, the cargo, once palletized and stacked using vacuum revealed exceptional performance, with a very efficient container loading and savings on labor and handling time.
