Oranges From Down Under Get Chilly Reception

Port's Warehouse Cold Treatment Facility, Unique on West Coast, A Safety Net For Fruit Shippers

About 200,000 pounds of Australian navel oranges imported to the United States for late-summer snacks and back-to-school lunches made an unexpected stop recently at the Port of Seattle.

The fruit was originally bound for a California port, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture refused to allow the shipment into the country when insects were discovered in some of the boxes. That left the produce's owner with two choices: Return the shipment to Australia, or reroute the oranges to the Port's Terminal 91 on-dock chill facility, the only USDA-certified treatment facility on the West Coast.

"The availability of this facility is a safety net for fruit shippers throughout the world and particularly to the West Coast," said Nickie Cartwright, general manager of cargo piers and industrial properties for the Port of Seattle.

While the insects hadn't affected the shipment of oranges, they did pose a threat to the United States' multi-billion dollar citrus industry. Chilling the fruit to just above the freezing mark for a prescribed amount of time ensures that any insects hidden within the hundreds of fruit boxes would be killed without harming the fruit.

The presence of insects within a shipment isn't the only time the Port's chill facility is called into service. Cartwright said USDA protocol requires that some fruit from certain regions of the world be cold treated before entering the U.S. market even if no insects are found on the product. Or perhaps a loaded container's "chill chain" was broken by a loss of refrigeration on the cargo ship during the cold treatment process -- another situation requiring a cold treatment before the fruit can enter the U.S. market.

The T-91 facilities work perfectly for cold treatment projects. Refrigerated warehouses are located directly on the dock, and temperature-sensitive shipments are transported immediately from ship to the chill facility.

A computer attached to the warehouse's refrigeration system prints out continuous, real-time temperatures from a series of thermometers inserted into the fruit by USDA inspectors. The data is reviewed periodically throughout the prescribed cold treatment to ensure proper temperatures are maintained. At the end of the assigned cold treatment regiment, or at the discretion of a USDA inspector, the shipment is released and the normal distribution can occur.

"With the chill facility, shippers can send fruit from newer import areas, such as parts of Chile and Argentina, where disease or insect problems may not have been entirely overcome," Cartwright said. "Our facility means certainty for those shippers."