RPC Shipping
Solution

Cut-to-cool time is the window between when bananas are cut and when they reach their target cold-chain temperature. That window matters because bananas have to cool quickly to stay in their unripe, pre-climacteric state, so they arrive green and ripen on schedule at the destination instead of prematurely in transit. The crate’s ventilated design lets cold air move through the stack faster than a closed cardboard box allows, which shortens that window and protects freshness and shelf life from the field forward.

Two ways. First, they remove air-stacking, the manual job of unloading bananas from cardboard boxes and restacking them by hand in the backroom, which can take 20 to 40 minutes per delivery. The crates arrive stackable and ready to move, so that step goes away. Second, with no cardboard boxes to break down, staff make far fewer trips to the baler to compact and dispose of packaging. Both changes put associates back on the sales floor sooner.

The Arena Box shown here is engineered specifically for bananas, and it’s the container behind the Fresh Del Monte reusable banana launch. Arena’s roots run through food and produce packaging more broadly, so the same reusable, collapsible approach can be built for other fresh produce applications. If you’re shipping a different commodity, Arena designs the crate and the handling process around it.