Venus Citrus is a family owned, established citrus packing shed that’s been operating from the Riverland region in South Australia since 1977. Servicing both domestic and overseas markets, the team at Venus Citrus are committed to quality assurance and continuous improvement initiatives to achieve and maintain high standards in food quality and safety – from the grower all the way through the food chain.

So, when E.E. Muir and Sons, a company well known for its innovation and leadership role in sourcing and producing a better, safer range of products for Australian growers and farmers introduced them to ChillSafe®, they were very interested.

Fabio Spiniello, Grower Liaison Officer at Venus Citrus, manages and coordinates the needs of both the growers and their packing sheds to ensure the efficient every-day running of the business. He has a long history working in the horticulture industry and had never come across a product like ChillSafe®. However, evidence of the product’s performance in similar environments, together with E.E. Muir and Son’s introduction convinced Fabio to trial ChillSafe® in their coolrooms. Two seasons later, they have ChillSafe in all of their 8 coolrooms – a total of 110 ChillSafe® sachets.

“We have a pretty extensive storage program. We prolong certain varieties, so we’re able to obtain larger dollar returns for the grower. So, we use ChillSafe to preserve the life of the fruit. We’re able to hold fruit for longer and have been able to pack a larger percent so the losses have been minimised.

Last season, ChillSafe saved us 5% on fruit storage - waste was reduced from about 8% to 3%. On 1000 bins, that’s the equivalent of saving around 20-25 tonnes of fruit!” And ChillSafe is safe, easy to use and odourless.”

Next year Venus Citrus are planning to expand the use of ChillSafe® to their shipping containers. COVID has created logistical challenges for growers with overseas markets. Fruit is taking a lot longer to reach their overseas destinations, which means the fruit is kept in containers for extended periods of time. ChillSafe® can also help to ensure the integrity of the produce over these longer journeys.

And when it comes to recommending ChillSafe®, Fabio is clear:

For any business that stores fruit and veggies for at least 7-10 days, ChillSafe can make a difference. After about one-week, fresh fruit and produce starts to slowly deteriorate. If the integrity of fresh produce can be extended from 1 week to 1 month – it’s a bonus. It’s fantastic!