Vending day and night

NEW DELHI: A number of  urban poor are  involved in vending of fruits and vegetables. Their  living conditions are poor  due to less income. Many a times, these vendors suffer losses due to deterioration in the quality of the fresh vegetable and fruits. Traditionally, vendors use wet gunny bags and keep on sprinkling water on it to keep it relatively fresh. However, this leads to spoilage  of  produce, particularly of leafy vegetables due to direct water sprinkling,  less  shelf life  which is usually limited to one day for leafy vegetables and two days for tomato, cucumber and others. In addition, there is also loss of income due to distress sales to recover whatever costs they have incurred. In order to help these vendors, a mobile vending Cart (Rehri) has been  designed to  store fresh fruits and  vegetables safely for  2-5 days .

The cart works by preserving the fresh  fruits and vegetables by controlling the environment around them. It has a Provision for an additional storage space of 8.0 cubic feet, below the main platform which provides an effective and uniform evaporative cooling arrangement with forced air circulation by DC fans and lighting facility through DC LED light powered by  Solar Photo Voltaic (SPV) Panel of 100 Wp. It is also equipped with a portable energy bank of 7Ah with the SPV through charge controller and protection devices to meet  energy requirement of any additional low  power rating domestic gadgets.

The storage chamber is capable of reducing  temperature by 5 -8°C and increase relative humidity by 15 to 30 percent points. This enhances storage life of fresh fruits & vegetables up to five days as it reduces evaporative losses and allows consumers’ to buy better quality produce. It also maintains freshness of the produce in terms of colour, texture and appearance up to five days which fetches more net income. It is especially useful in winter season when ambient condition is dry which induces deterioration in appearance of the fresh vegetables.

The cart has been designed by the Division of Agricultural engineering , IARI  New Delhi and has a price tag of ?30,000.