UPFRONT roadtest

Grower David Ellement says retrofitting a Frigbot has not only saved his cold-stored produce several times over, but also more than paid for the investment.

As told to Anna Flanders
Photography Frances Andrijich

MANDOGALUP grower David Ellement had been searching for a monitoring system to retrofit into his existing cool room that would text or email alerts. Most newer cool rooms come with this technology, but the older ones don’t and a failure at the wrong time can be costly. While it took a failure for David to find the Frigbot, he says everyone should install a monitoring system into their older cool stores.

vWA How did you find the Frigbot?

DAVID My cool room agent told me about it. I’d been looking for a product for a long time and hadn’t found anything I really liked. I wanted a device that would email or text me alerts when temperatures changed. This does that.

vWA Did an issue prompt the purchase?

DAVID I had a cool room failure in the middle of summer and didn’t pick it up. When I came in to work the next day, my cool room was quite warm. If I had installed a monitoring system, I wouldn’t have had that problem.

vWA What did you want from a cool room monitoring product?

DAVID I wanted something that gave me real-time information. I wanted alarms on anything that could go wrong. I’ve got it set up to let me know if the cool room goes over a certain temperature and if it goes under a certain temperature. I receive an alarm if the door is left open, it loses power or if there is a mechanical failure or faulty part, and I receive an alert every six months for servicing. I am alerted to anything that is critical to operation.

vWA What are the costs associated with the Frigbot?

DAVID The total install cost is around the $1000 mark. It comes with a SIM card, but requires an annual subscription of around $2030 and a one-off installation fee. It has paid for itself twice already since I’ve installed it.

vWA What were the steps involved to set it up?

DAVID I ordered it and the cool room company installed it. Our cool room already had the brains (sensors) in place, so it was plug and play for us. Some cool rooms will be different if they don’t have the sensors. I then set how long a door could be left open, the temperature I wanted and the alarm to email and text me if the door is open for a certain amount of time. If the cool room drops below or rises above a temperature I have set, I will also receive a text or email. You can set up all the alerts you want.

vWA Can you keep track of daily and weekly changes?

DAVID I’ve set it up to email me a report every morning. I use it as part of my QA system. I just print it out and use it. It makes life a little bit easier. I’ve set it to track temperature every four minutes.

vWA How has it impacted your business so far?

DAVID I had a cool room gas failure after I installed the Frigbot. I received an alarm at 3am because it was warming up. With this early notification, I was able to call my cool room agent at 6am, have someone at the farm at 8am and my cool room was operational by 9am. If I didn’t have the Frigbot, I wouldn’t have known the cool room was heating up until it was manually monitored, then I would have needed to work out the issue and wouldn’t have had a technician until later in the day as by then they all have jobs locked in.

“ I’ve set it up to email me a report every morning... I’ve set it to track temperature every four minutes ”

Another issue occurred on a Friday night. I received a text message stating we had lost power to the cool room. So I drove back to work, started the generator and turned on the cool room. Everyone had left work, the cool room was full, so we would have lost all that stock if not for the monitoring system.

vWA You mentioned that you could have avoided the gas failure…

DAVID Yes, if we had the monitoring and the daily report, I would have seen we were losing gas earlier. The readings would show we weren’t pulling down temperature as fast as we should on the emailed daily records over the previous two days. Now when I come into work, the first thing I do is open the emailed report and check the trace of the previous 24 hours. I measure the cool room temperature every four minutes, so every four minutes it takes a reading. So I can easily work out if there’s a problem in the cool room, even if the staff leaving the cool room door open or just not closing it quick enough. It’s all about efficiency.

vWA So, how does it actually work?

DAVID It’s cloud-based, so there is nothing to download. You can use a desktop, phone or anything that you use for your business. I set it up on the cloud on my computer, and I don’t need to look at it again because it’s all run remotely.

vWA How important a tool is this is for farming businesses?

DAVID I would say it’s vital. In hindsight, I probably took too long to put one in. Most new cool rooms all come with this technology, but if you have an older one, like me, then it pays to retrofit a Frigbot. I’ve talked to a few growers and was surprised by the number of people who don’t have this. You only need one failure to make the initial outlay pay for itself. No-one wants a temperature rejection or damaged crop.

Frigbot is a Perth invention that is now sold worldwide. Visit www.frigbot.com.