GEA provides Betko with low‑power fruit storage in South Africa

German engineering firm GEA has installed a new controlled‑atmosphere cold‑storage complex for South African fruit producer Betko Fresh Produce at its Sunnyside farm in the Western Cape. The facility comprises 24 chambers, each holding 1,200 bins, allowing the company to store apples and pears for up to 14 months and to handle roughly 50,000 additional bins per year.

The design integrates building envelope, storage layout and refrigeration system to cut peak electricity demand by about 20 %. GEA’s Adaptive Suction Set‑Point Control continuously recalculates the optimal operating point for each chamber every 60 seconds, while three variable‑frequency ammonia compressors (with a fourth standby unit) provide the cooling. Insulated floors and higher stacking (11 bins high) increase capacity within the same 5,000 m² footprint. GEA head of project sales for southern and eastern Africa Shaun Kleb said, “The starting point of this project was energy optimisation,” and the payback period was projected to be within a year.