The fishing industry in Ghana and other areas at the West Coast of Africa is centred around small villages where domestic fishermen land their daily catch. There, fish is consumed locally as it is landed with no freezing or storage facilities or any means to serve people living further away from the coast. Standard cabinet freezers and freezer/storage chests, all based on worldwide recognised, single contact freezer plates, would not suit these areas requirements.
Realising this, Canadian company Gunthela Enterprise has developed a fully self-contained unit that combines freezing, storing and transporting inland to populations with difficulty to access to seafood.
The unit has two compartments, one with five stations of freezer plates enabling high quality quick freezing and another to store the product after it is frozen. The daily freezing capacity is 600 to 750 kg depending on the type of product to be frozen and the storage is about 1500kg.
It is equipped with a diesel or gas engine driven condensing system, which incorporates a smaller, air-cooled segment, providing the refrigeration for the stored product during transport.
The chest is sized to fit onto a small flat-deck truck or it may be placed, even during operation, on a trailer. When the storage space is filled the trailer will be hooked up to a vehicle.
The outside dimensions are 2m x 2.50m x 1.40m high, small enough to fit onto the deck of a truck. A compliment of two units would be the ideal condition to allow a continuous operation.
What applies to the West Coast of Africa will be equally relevant for many other areas of the world and Gunthela Enterprise has received some indication that in certain countries Government support for small fishing communities may become available. Gunthela Enterprise is hoping to market the product in the next two months.
