Cold Chain
More than one third of all food perishes on its way from harvest to consumers – insufficient cooling being the reason.
The materials used in the infrastructure of food delivery and storage have a direct impact on how much of a given amount of food perishes before reaching the end consumer. Covestro creates the components for polyurethane rigid foams that are especially well-suited for the cool chain. These materials are used around the globe to insulate warehouses, trucks, refrigerated counters in supermarkets, private refrigerators and freezers. Covestro experts are constantly working on making the high-performance foams perform even better. The most recent innovation in this regard is based on a simple equation: the smaller the pores inside the foam, the better its insulating performance. With microfoam, we were able to reduce the size of the pores – which were extremely small to begin with – by up to 40 percent. The result is a plus of up to 10 percent in the foam’s insulation capability.
Less energy, more space
In this way, microfoam contributes to the battle against food loss on a global scale. On top of that, it helps end consumers save lots of energy in their private homes, as refrigerators and freezers are responsible for no less than one fifth of the average household’s power consumption. And, finally, the innovative foams also make our everyday appliances more practical: because they are thinner than conventional solutions, refrigerators using microfoam provide additional storage room for food and drinks.
