Whether you live in a metropolitan city or a village, you are sure to hear the calls of hawkers who sell anything from vegetables to glass bangles. Vegetable hawkers sell fruits, vegetables and greens from an open pushcart. Since the wares are exposed to natural elements, the quality of the produce reduces by the hour, impacting the hawkers’ income.
But a simple innovative cooling method can help them keep the fruits and vegetables fresh for up to three days, preventing loss of income.
Sale of vegetables from pushcarts
While vegetables and fruits are sold in supermarkets and by delivery agencies that take orders online, the market for street hawkers still exists. These vendors get fresh produce from the wholesale market every day and use an open pushcart to sell vegetables.
As the vegetable vendors push their cart through residential colonies and rural streets, the vegetables remain exposed to outside temperatures. Since the hawkers sell during the day when the temperature is high most of the time, there is rapid deterioration in the quality of vegetables and fruits.
It is estimated that the rate of spoilage of vegetables increases 2-3 times with each 10°C rise in temperature. Also, as the vendors’ routine involves moving about, they are unable to maintain appropriate quality of vegetables for more than two days in summer. If they are not able to sell all the vegetables and fruits in two days, they resort to selling the produce at throwaway prices. If they are unable to sell even after reducing the price, they end up discarding the fruits and vegetables as waste, incurring heavy loss.
Air-cooled pushcarts keep vegetables fresh
If the perishable vegetables can be kept at low temperature and high relative humidity, they can be stored for a longer period, especially during summer.
Among various methods, evaporative cooling is an environmentally-friendly air-cooling system where water and air are the working fluids.
