Before 1996 the activities of the cold chain and logistics was the responsibility of Outspan. After deregulation there was no responsible body to coordinate these activities. To address this important issue the Citrus Cold Chain Forum was established in 2007 by putting the following structures in place: The Packhouse and Handling Panel consisting of 5 Regional Packhouse Study groups, The Packaging Working Group, The Exporters Technical Panel, and CRI's Cold Chain Research Project. The aim of this Forum is to support pursuit of the global competitiveness of the southern African citrus industry, by enabling optimisation of the citrus cold chain through the provision of a platform for coordinating relevant inputs from key affected parties.

The functions of this forum are to provide platforms for feedback from and interaction between the forum's membership groups, for technology transfer, for identification of Research priorities, to identify activities to be conducted by the forum and its membership groups, to convene a series of regional pre-packing season workshops, to participate in Citrus Marketing Forum functions and to develop a set of guidelines of relevance to the Citrus Cold Chain.

The CRI Extension Division agreed to co-ordinate the formation of the CCCF and the initiation of its activities and Hannes Bester currently acts as convener of the forum.

Citrus Research International (Pty) Ltd
P O Box 28, Nelspruit, Mpumalanga, 1200 South Africa
+27 13 759 8000
www.citrusres.com