A study on supercooling processes of leaf lettuces produced in plant factory

Plant factories daily produce large amount of high quality vegetables under artificially controlled environments. One of the important problems to be considered is to establish suitable storage systems to achieve an acceptable length of shelf life and to minimize the risk to food borne illnesses. Temperature control is an essential part of food storage in food production and distribution network. Recent researches into food storage technologies have proposed alternative method of extending the shelf life of vegetables, including the use of superchilling (partial freezing) and supercooling (cooling below the freezing point without phase change). This study deals with the application of the supercooling technologies to the extension of the shelf life of the high quality leaf lettuces produced by the plant factories.