Ripening room design: The biggest mistakes to avoid

When many of today’s ripening rooms were designed, the commercial landscape looked very different.

Energy was comparatively inexpensive. Environmental reporting was minimal. Labour costs were lower, and retailers placed less emphasis on product consistency than they do today. Engineers naturally optimised facilities around the priorities of the time: reliability, throughput and building systems that could comfortably meet production demands.

Those decisions were entirely rational.

The problem is that many of those facilities are still operating today under completely different commercial conditions.

Energy has become one of the largest controllable operating costs for fresh produce businesses. Customers expect consistently high-quality fruit regardless of season or origin. Sustainability targets are influencing procurement decisions, while maintenance teams are being asked to achieve more with fewer resources.

The engineering principles behind many existing ripening rooms have not evolved at the same pace.

At SmartHarvest, we believe this is one of the biggest reasons businesses find themselves questioning why operating costs continue to rise despite investing heavily in maintenance and equipment replacement. In many cases, the issue isn’t how the ripening room is being managed today. It lies in decisions made years or even decades ago when the facility was originally designed.

The encouraging news is that these challenges are often far easier to address than many operators realise. Understanding where those design compromises exist is the first step towards improving performance without necessarily replacing the entire facility.

Perhaps the most common design philosophy found in older ripening facilities is planning for the absolute maximum operating scenario.

This approach made perfect sense when businesses expected production volumes to grow steadily and when oversized engineering systems offered reassurance that capacity would never become a limiting factor.

As a result, refrigeration systems were often specified with generous safety margins. Fans were selected to deliver significantly more airflow than was routinely required. Cooling systems were designed to cope with exceptional operating conditions that occurred only occasionally throughout the year.

While this created resilient facilities, it also introduced a problem that becomes increasingly expensive over time.

Equipment designed to operate at full load rarely performs at peak efficiency when running continuously at partial capacity. Compressors cycle more frequently than necessary, fans consume more electricity than the application demands and environmental control becomes less precise because the engineering systems are operating outside their optimum performance range.

The International Energy Agency estimates that improvements in industrial energy efficiency remain one of the largest untapped opportunities for reducing operating costs across energy-intensive sectors, with HVAC and refrigeration systems representing a significant area for optimisation.

For ripening operations, this means the hidden cost of oversizing extends far beyond electricity bills. Larger systems often require greater maintenance, consume more replacement parts and create more complex control challenges throughout the life of the facility.

Rather than asking how much equipment can fit inside a ripening room, modern engineering increasingly asks a different question.

How much equipment is actually needed to deliver consistent environmental conditions?

That shift in thinking has become fundamental to retrofit projects.

Ask most engineers what influences ripening performance and refrigeration is usually the first answer.

In reality, airflow is often just as important.

Temperature, humidity and ethylene concentration only become consistent when air moves predictably throughout the room. Even relatively small variations in airflow can create uneven ripening patterns that affect colour development, firmness and shelf life.

Many legacy ripening rooms rely on airflow assumptions that no longer reflect today’s loading practices.

• Pallet configurations have changed.
• Packaging has evolved.
• Fruit varieties have diversified.
• Retail specifications have become more demanding.

Yet the airflow design inside many facilities remains exactly as it was when the building first opened.

This creates areas where conditioned air circulates efficiently alongside locations where temperature and ethylene distribution become significantly less consistent.

Operators frequently compensate by extending ripening cycles or making manual adjustments to achieve acceptable results. The symptom appears to be inconsistent fruit. The underlying cause is often inconsistent airflow.

Research published by the International Institute of Refrigeration highlights the importance of uniform air distribution within refrigerated food storage environments, demonstrating that airflow significantly influences temperature consistency, product quality and overall energy performance.

Improving airflow does not necessarily require rebuilding a ripening room. In many cases, relatively modest engineering changes can transform how effectively conditioned air reaches every pallet position. Understanding that relationship is one of the reasons retrofit projects frequently produce improvements that extend well beyond reductions in electricity consumption.

Control systems have changed dramatically over the past two decades. Historically, their primary purpose was straightforward.

• Switch equipment on.
• Switch equipment off.
• Maintain a temperature setpoint.
• Alert operators when something failed.

That level of functionality was entirely appropriate when engineering systems operated largely in isolation and performance monitoring was limited.

Today’s commercial environment demands considerably more. Modern ripening facilities require operators to understand how equipment is performing, not simply whether it is running.

They need visibility into energy consumption, compressor efficiency, temperature stability, humidity control and airflow performance across every stage of the ripening cycle. They also need historical data that supports continuous improvement rather than simply recording alarms after problems have occurred.

This shift reflects a wider trend across industrial operations. According to Deloitte’s research into smart manufacturing, organisations that successfully deploy digital monitoring technologies report improvements in operational efficiency, asset utilisation and maintenance planning through better visibility and predictive insights. For ripening operations, the implications are significant.

Without meaningful operational data, engineering teams are often forced into reactive decision-making. Problems are identified only after they have begun affecting fruit quality, energy consumption or equipment reliability. Opportunities for optimisation remain hidden because the facility simply cannot provide the information needed to identify them. Modern control systems are changing that relationship.

Rather than acting purely as automation platforms, they are becoming operational intelligence systems that support better engineering decisions. Continuous monitoring allows businesses to detect subtle changes in equipment performance before they become expensive failures, while historical reporting helps refine future ripening cycles.

This evolution is one of the clearest distinctions between legacy facilities and modern engineering practice. It is also one of the strongest arguments for evaluating whether existing control infrastructure still meets the demands of today’s commercial environment.

One of the most expensive assumptions made during the design of a ripening room is that today’s operation will look exactly the same ten years from now. In reality, very few fresh produce businesses remain static for long.

Retail specifications evolve. Product portfolios expand. New fruit varieties enter the market. Packaging formats change. Customer expectations around consistency become more demanding, while commercial pressure continues to drive greater operational efficiency.

Unfortunately, many ripening rooms were designed around a fixed operating model. They were built to process a specific volume of fruit, using a particular pallet configuration, within a predetermined workflow. At the time, this approach made complete sense. It created a facility that was highly efficient for the business it was intended to support.

The challenge is that businesses rarely stand still. Over time, operational teams are forced to adapt the facility rather than the facility adapting to the business. Temporary storage areas become permanent. Additional fans or refrigeration equipment are introduced to compensate for changes in loading patterns. New product lines are squeezed into spaces that were never designed for them. Every small compromise appears manageable in isolation, but together they gradually reduce the efficiency of the entire operation.

This lack of flexibility often goes unnoticed because it develops incrementally. The facility continues to function, but every operational adjustment introduces another layer of complexity for engineers and production teams to manage.

Modern ripening room design takes a fundamentally different approach. Rather than optimising purely for today’s throughput, it considers how the facility may need to evolve over the next decade. Flexibility becomes part of the engineering brief. Modular control systems, scalable refrigeration capacity and adaptable airflow strategies allow the room to respond to changing commercial demands without requiring significant structural alterations.

The World Economic Forum has consistently highlighted organisational adaptability as a defining characteristic of resilient businesses, particularly as supply chains respond to changing consumer demand, climate pressures and economic uncertainty. While this research is not specific to ripening operations, the principle is directly applicable to facilities that must continue delivering consistent performance despite evolving market conditions.

For ripening operators, designing with flexibility in mind is no longer simply a desirable feature. It is increasingly becoming a commercial necessity.

Capital expenditure has traditionally dominated engineering decisions. When businesses invest in a new ripening room, the natural focus is on construction costs, equipment pricing and project delivery. Keeping the initial investment under control is an understandable priority, particularly when budgets are under pressure. However, the purchase price of a ripening room represents only a fraction of its lifetime cost.

Over the course of twenty or thirty years, electricity, maintenance, servicing, replacement parts and operational downtime will often exceed the original capital investment several times over. A design that appears cost-effective on day one can become significantly more expensive when viewed across the full operational life of the facility.

The Carbon Trust has repeatedly demonstrated that the majority of the lifetime cost of many building services and industrial energy systems comes from operating expenditure rather than the initial purchase price. Its guidance encourages organisations to adopt a whole-life costing approach when evaluating energy-intensive assets, recognising that investing in higher-efficiency equipment frequently reduces overall ownership costs despite higher upfront expenditure.

This principle is particularly relevant for ripening rooms. Selecting lower-cost refrigeration equipment may reduce project expenditure in the short term, but if that equipment consumes more electricity every hour of every day for the next twenty years, the financial impact quickly outweighs the initial saving.

The same principle applies to control systems, airflow design and monitoring infrastructure. Features that are sometimes viewed as optional during construction often become essential once the facility is operating at scale. Retrofitting those capabilities later is almost always more expensive than incorporating them into the original engineering strategy.

At SmartHarvest, we encourage customers to think beyond installation costs and consider the total cost of ownership. The objective should never be to build the cheapest ripening room. It should be to create the most commercially efficient one over its operational lifetime which should influence the ripening room retrofit strategy.

That change in perspective often leads to very different engineering decisions.

Perhaps the most significant misconception in ripening room design is the belief that engineering performance and fruit quality should be considered independently. In reality, they are inseparable.

Every engineering decision influences the environment in which fruit ripens. Airflow affects the uniform distribution of ethylene. Refrigeration determines temperature stability. Humidity control influences moisture loss, firmness and appearance. Sensors and control systems determine how accurately environmental conditions are maintained throughout the ripening cycle.

When these systems work together, fruit develops consistently across every pallet position. When they do not, operators are often forced to compensate through longer ripening cycles, additional manual intervention or adjustments that increase both labour and energy consumption.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates that around 14% of food is lost globally between harvest and retail, with poor storage, handling and post-harvest infrastructure playing a significant role. Although these losses occur across the entire food supply chain rather than specifically within ripening facilities, the research highlights how critical environmental control is to protecting product quality before food reaches consumers.

For businesses handling climacteric fruit, consistency is not simply a quality objective. It is a commercial one.

Every variation in ripening performance creates uncertainty for customers, increases the likelihood of product claims and places additional pressure on operational teams to achieve uniform results from inconsistent conditions.

Modern ripening room design recognises this relationship from the outset. Rather than viewing engineering systems as utilities that simply keep the room operational, they become precision tools that directly influence commercial performance.

This shift in thinking is transforming how successful ripening operations evaluate investment decisions. The question is no longer, “How efficiently does the equipment run?” It is increasingly, “How consistently does the engineering help us produce better fruit?”

Perhaps the biggest shift in ripening room design over the past decade has not been a piece of equipment or a breakthrough in refrigeration technology.

It has been a change in perspective. Historically, ripening rooms were designed as individual assets. The objective was straightforward: create a controlled environment capable of producing consistent fruit. Once the room was commissioned and operating within specification, attention naturally moved elsewhere in the business.

Today’s leading ripening operations take a much broader view. A ripening room is no longer considered an isolated engineering project. It is one component within a connected supply chain that stretches from harvest through to retail shelves. Decisions made inside the ripening room influence transport planning, inventory management, customer fulfilment, energy consumption and ultimately the eating experience of the consumer.

When viewed through this wider commercial lens, the limitations of older designs become much more apparent.

Many legacy facilities generate very little operational data. Engineering teams know whether equipment is running, but they often lack visibility into why performance varies between cycles or how environmental conditions influence downstream outcomes. Production teams, quality managers and commercial teams frequently work from different information, making it difficult to identify where improvements should be prioritised.

This fragmented approach also limits continuous improvement. If fruit consistently requires longer ripening cycles, is the cause product variability, airflow, refrigeration performance or loading patterns? If electricity consumption increases over time, is the issue ageing compressors, changing operating practices or declining control accuracy? Without connected information, these questions often rely on experience and judgement rather than measurable evidence.

Modern ripening room design increasingly removes those barriers by bringing operational data together. Engineering performance, fruit quality and production metrics can be analysed collectively, allowing businesses to understand not only what happened during a ripening cycle but why it happened. This creates opportunities to improve consistency, reduce waste and make more informed investment decisions over time.

As we explore in our guide to data-driven climacteric fruit ripening, better visibility enables operators to move from reactive problem solving to proactive optimisation. Every ripening cycle becomes an opportunity to refine performance rather than simply repeat the last one.

The value of this connected approach extends beyond operational efficiency. According to the World Economic Forum, digital technologies that improve transparency and visibility across supply chains are becoming increasingly important in building resilient and efficient food systems.

For ripening businesses, that means the engineering systems inside a ripening room should no longer be viewed in isolation. They are part of a much wider operational ecosystem where data, environmental control and commercial performance are closely connected.

Looking back, it is easy to criticise the design decisions made when many of today’s ripening rooms were built. Oversized refrigeration systems, fixed-speed fans and basic control platforms can appear outdated when compared with the technology available today. In reality, those facilities reflected the priorities of their time.

Engineers designed for reliability because reliability mattered most. Energy was comparatively inexpensive, digital monitoring was in its infancy and the commercial pressure to demonstrate sustainability or minimise carbon emissions was far less pronounced than it is today.

The challenge is not that those decisions were wrong. The challenge is that the market has changed.

Fresh produce businesses are now operating in an environment where energy costs are volatile, customers demand greater consistency, labour remains under pressure and sustainability has become a commercial differentiator rather than simply a corporate responsibility initiative.

Ripening rooms designed twenty years ago were never expected to meet those requirements. That is why so many operators find themselves questioning whether their facilities are still delivering the performance their business needs.

The answer is rarely found by replacing individual components in isolation. Nor is it always found by constructing an entirely new building.

More often, the greatest opportunity comes from understanding how the original design can be adapted using modern engineering principles, intelligent controls and better operational data.

Our guide to ripening room retrofits explores this in greater detail, explaining how targeted upgrades can improve energy efficiency, enhance fruit consistency and extend the operational life of existing facilities without the cost and disruption of a complete rebuild.

At SmartHarvest, we believe the best ripening rooms are not necessarily the newest. They are the ones that continue to evolve alongside the businesses they support. That is ultimately the difference between engineering designed to maintain operations and engineering designed to improve them.

Every ripening room reflects the thinking, technology and commercial priorities of the time it was built. That is why many facilities that continue to operate reliably are no longer operating efficiently.

The challenges facing today’s fresh produce businesses are very different from those of twenty years ago. Energy has become a strategic cost rather than a routine overhead. Customers expect greater consistency, sustainability is influencing buying decisions and operational data has become a valuable commercial asset. These changes require a different approach to engineering.

Throughout this article, we’ve explored how seemingly sensible design decisions can gradually become barriers to performance. Oversized refrigeration systems consume unnecessary energy. Poor airflow compromises fruit consistency. Basic control systems limit visibility. Facilities designed around fixed operating models struggle to adapt as businesses evolve, while decisions based solely on upfront capital costs often lead to higher lifetime operating expenses.

None of these issues necessarily indicate that a ripening room has reached the end of its useful life. In fact, many facilities remain structurally sound and continue to provide significant value. The opportunity lies in recognising where modern engineering can unlock better performance from the assets already in place.

This is why we encourage businesses to begin with an engineering assessment rather than assumptions. Understanding how a facility is performing today provides the insight needed to identify where improvements will deliver the greatest commercial return. In many cases, relatively targeted upgrades to refrigeration systems, airflow, controls or monitoring technology can achieve substantial improvements without the cost or disruption of constructing a new ripening room.

As we explain in our guide to ripening room retrofits, modernisation is rarely about replacing everything. It is about investing in the areas that will have the greatest impact on energy efficiency, fruit quality and long-term operational resilience.

The organisations that gain the greatest competitive advantage over the coming decade are unlikely to be those with the newest facilities. They will be the businesses that continually question whether their engineering is still aligned with the commercial realities of today.

At SmartHarvest, we believe the conversation should no longer be “How old is our ripening room?” It should be “How well is it performing?”

That single shift in perspective has the potential to transform not only the efficiency of a ripening room, but the profitability and resilience of the business that depends on it.