Chapter 1 - History of Hypobaric Storage

Abstract

Major events in the history of hypobaric storage are reviewed since its first description by Burg and Burg in 1965/1966. Laboratory studies demonstrated remarkable increases in the storage life of horticultural crops, meat, fish, poultry, and shrimp kept in a saturated low-pressure atmosphere, and between 1976 and 1982 prototype Grumman/Dormavac hypobaric intermodal containers successfully exported horsemeat, pork, asparagus, mangos, papayas, and hanging-lambs. Grumman Corp. and Armour & Co. were awarded the US Food Technology Industrial Achievement award for developing hypobaric transportation and storage systems. However, academic publications described inherent problems with hypobaric storage. The academic belief that hypobaric storage is a flawed technology originated from experimental errors in LP research caused by nonprecise temperature control, cold-spots on the vacuum chamber’s surface, humidifying at atmospheric pressure rather than a low pressure, inadequate air changes, leaky vacuum chambers, and a failure to realize that the high turgor pressure of plant cells prevents low-pressure storage from causing volatiles to boil and “outgas.” The critical literature so-diminished interest in hypobaric storage that during the past 20 years only a few LP studies have been published in the West. Grumman/Dormavac and VacuFresh hypobaric intermodal containers, VivaFresh warehouses, and the first Chinese hypobaric warehouse are described and illustrated.