Pre-cooling of fruit for Japan

The Japanese authorities have very strict requirements of pre-cooling of fruit, especially from South Africa. The pre-cooling is to prevent any possible survival of fruit files in the cargo.

The authorities require hat relevant fruit cargoes are pre-cooled to a certain low temperature for a fixed period of time before they will allow discharge. The ship must be able to prove that the pre-cooling has been carried out by producing an unbroken run of temperature records showing this.

If a temperature recorder printer or a sensor fails during the pre-cooling so that the run of temperature records is broken, the Japanese authorities do not appear willing to accept that the pre-cooling has been properly carried out. They will insist that it is re-done before discharge takes place, resulting in delay to the ship. There is no chance of persuading the Japanese authorities of accepting that pre-cooling has been carried out unless there is an unbroken run of records.