Air Water cooled harvested produce in ~1 hour on liquid nitrogen

Produce loses freshness fastest in the hours after harvest, especially in summer heat. Expensive fixed precooling plants only run at harvest and still bill power all year.

Air Water built a portable cryogenic cooler that uses liquid nitrogen's cold to chill produce at the field, cutting cooling time from about eight hours to about one.

It plans to run proof-of-concept trials with growers and logistics operators, then rent or sell the units and the liquid nitrogen, and use the field-side chilling to support export.

Ship the cold on demand, not the plant

Cooling quickly stays the respiration that ages produce.

A portable unit only costs money when it is working.

Field-side cooling lets you ship further and export more.

If a fixed asset sits idle most of the year, replace it with a portable, rental unit you bring to the job; the bottleneck is the season, not the equipment.

The system is still in validation, run with growers and distributors rather than sold at scale. Air Water's broader ambition is to turn the technology into a business that rents the unit, supplies the gas, and uses good chilling to raise the value of domestic produce abroad.