The first effective, remotely-controlled, and environmentally-friendly in-built food-transport sanitisation system

ended

When transporting perishable food-stuffs, disinfection of vehicles between loading is crucial for preventing bacterial growth, cross-contamination and ultimately bacterial outbreaks across the food chain. However, the inefficient current sanitisation methods (i.e. manual cleaning and spraying with disinfectant) are responsible for both i) ~1% of food wastage annually due to cross-contamination during transportation, and ii) 25.4% of road-freight vehicles empty travels after unloading their freight because of the latent risk of cross-contamination, bringing as consequence poor food supply chain security, fuel inefficiency and excess of CO2 emissions. Since 2002, at D-Tech, we have been providers of D-San mist systems and disinfectants for the meat and fish processing industry, and in doing so we have reached the successful installation of 100 D-San systems in 50 companies across 10 countries. Now, considering the food transportation sanitisation challenge and capitalising on D-San success, we have developed D-Truck: the first mist sanitisation system built-in to food transport vehicles, enabling automated disinfection immediately after the unloading of the food-stuffs. Thus, D-Truck, offering disinfection out-of-depot, 95-97% more effective, 90% faster, 95% less chemical- and 90-95% less water-intensive, allows the immediate reloading of foodstuffs (no more empty travels) and makes freight fleet monitoring simple. Entering the market in 2021, D-Truck will sell on demand to refrigerated road-freight transport companies (B2B) involved with the transportation of fish-product transport. By 2023, we expect to gain a minimum market share of 0.5% (2,800 D-Truck units sold), making a cumulative profit of € 7 million and creating at least 15 new jobs.