Extending the shelf life of fruits and vegetables in developing counties What?
Wakati One is an innovative technology that increase the shelf life of fruits and vegetables for smallholder farmers in developing countries. With a small solar panel of just 3 Watts, Wakati creates a sterilized micro climate that dramatically increase the shelf life of these crops.
Why?
According the United Nations, 45% of fruits and vegetables is spoiled before it reaches the market. This means that almost half of the labour and investments are wasted as well! In other words it is impossible to be productive without a decent storage to protect the crops.
Wakati-one
Wakati first product is based on an ancient technology, strips of its shortcomings and it’s undependable nature, to an affordable product that is easy to use, transport and install. Wakati-one is basically a tent structure with an internal serialized micro-climate for extending the shelf life of fresh crops while combating pests and diseases. This innovation will aid smallholders to be more productive, eco-responsible and profitable, while it provide the population with fresh and nutritious crops.
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Triple economic value: more, better and longer... Better
More Without protection, the crops lose a lot of water. This means your profit is evaporating!
Longer
Without protection, the quality deteriorates fast and the crops lose their value.
Wakati improves the bargaining position and prevent stress sales by a longer shelf-life.
...without cooling Everybody knows that fruits and vegetables grows on the field and the field is hot, so it is not so strange that you do not need cooling to increase their shelf-life.. Wakati works with a sterilized microclimate with less than 1% of the energy of a refrigerator and a fraction of the cost.
Findings of the university of (KU) Leuven
Weight loss of carrots
After 8 days in Wakati, the weight loss is comparable against one day one in the “unprotected condition”. The weight loss, hardness and sweetness in Wakati where comparable with the control samples from the cooling. A large variants of crops has been tested including aubergine, sweet peppers, grape fruits, lettuce, amaranth, parsnip, oranges, mango’s, green beans, grapes... and should be suited for all fruits and vegetables, with various shelf-life improvements, with the exception of onions and garlic. After 10 days at 30°C/ 86°F Unprotected
Cooling Unprotected Wakati
Time (days) Applied force (kg)
This study, executed in an environmental chamber, researched the hardness, Brix value and the weight loss. The hardness is a good indicator how well the crops can survive transportation, the weight loss is directly linked with the sellable weight of the crops and the Brix value of the nutritional value.
Weight loss (%)
Source: Wakati voor de bewaring van groenten en fruit in ontwikkelingslanden T. Degrande, N. Gerrits, C. Roye, P. Truyen, 14 mei 2013
Hardness of carrots
Cooling Unprotected Wakati
Time (days)
After 10 days at 30°C/ 86°F Wakati
“Minimizing post-harvest losses of already produced food is more sustainable than increasing production to compensate for these losses.“ Prof. Dr. A.Kader University of California
www.Wakati.org