Maintaining produce quality and safety matters deeply to growers; it’s good for customers and for business. Having a walk-in cooler also benefits the bottomline by opening up wholesale markets and reducing food waste. For those who sell at farmers markets, a cooler provides valuable flexibility to harvest timing, so they don’t have to do all their picking the night before the farmers market.
But the upfront cost of a new, traditional produce cooler can be prohibitive — in the range of $15,000.
“That price is overwhelming for many farmers,” said Annalisa Hultberg, University of Minnesota Extension educator in on-farm food safety. And some of these systems can be difficult to repair if something breaks down because they require electricians or HVAC professionals to make house calls.
But there is a less expensive option: buying used cooler panels, adding a standard window-unit air conditioner and attaching a tool called a CoolBot. The CoolBot was created by a farmer, and it works by plugging into the AC unit and “tricking” it to cool to a lower temperature. This can lower the cost of a produce cooler dramatically — to about $1,500. And troubleshooting is much easier on one’s own.
University of Minnesota Extension hosted its first hands-on workshop to walk farmers through how to build a produce cooler themselves this spring. Used cooler panels are frequently found on Facebook Marketplace, and this workshop helps farmers understand what to look for, whether they come across an assembled or disassembled cooler unit, to make a cost-effective decision.
“The goal is to do this cheap, but cheap can become expensive if we don’t know what we’re doing,” said Ariel Pressman, the principal consultant of Whole Farm Strategies who co-led the workshop with Hultberg.
New life for used cooler panels
Thanks to an MDA Specialty Crop Block grant, Hultberg and Pressman purchased cooler panels from a local Subway restaurant that was closing. The scattered pieces become a puzzle for students to work together to build (and build again in future workshops). Which pieces are the ceiling, floor, walls, corners or door?
With work gloves, tape measures and Allen wrenches, the participants eagerly got to work putting the panels together and cheered when the cooler was assembled. They turned on the AC unit fitted with a CoolBot. After lunch, they got to walk in and feel 38-degree temperature.
Building confidence
“I always see [used cooler panels for sale] on Facebook. You have to take it apart. I don’t know how, so I don’t purchase it. Now I know how,” said participant Xor McCray of Sun Kissed Farm.
The workshop included checklists on what to look for when shopping for cooler panels and troubleshooting tips such as considering vegetable respiration rates and how tightly to pack boxes in the cooler.
“Seeing it makes a big difference. Once we see it, it becomes practical,” said Callin Bosire of Lisaviole Farm in Medina. “This way of teaching farmers — it’s the best.”
Learn more about from Extension’s Fruit and Vegetable News.