Processing and Packinghouse Pilot Plant
The CREC Processing Pilot Plant contains most of the equipment necessary to perform studies related to citrus beverage and by-products processing. Included are the operations of fruit washing and sizing, state test extraction, juice extraction and finishing, centrifugation, evaporation, pasteurization, filtration and feed mill dehydration. Research capabilities are available to support the studies of the scientists and for cooperative industry projects.
Fresh fruit pilot plant facilities are available for degreening, packing-line treatment and storage studies of citrus. Automated equipment, recently donated by Colour Vision Systems, has been incorporated in to the packing-line to size and sort fresh fruit by color, density and blemish criteria. Multiple refrigerated rooms are utilized for experiments to simulate transit and storage of fresh and minimally processed citrus. Remote monitoring of these facilities is accomplished through a PC-based data acquisition system. For more information about handling of fresh fruit and decay control visit http://postharvest.ifas.ufl.edu/ or contact Dr. Mark Ritenour (ritenour@ufl.edu).
