Cost Estimation for the Preservation of Selected Food/Crop Products With Ozone

Most research publications on the application of ozone for the extension of shelf life of food and crop products suffer from, firstly, not clearly defining the dose of ozone used relative to the sample sizes of produce and, secondly, not quantifying the cost implication. The aim of this article is to clearly calculate the ozone dosage for some 30 different food storage applications. Then, a rationale for the cost estimation of ozonation on an industrial scale was established. The cost of ozonation was analyzed by separating the capital, operating and maintenance costs, and then expressing each of these as the cost per kg of applied ozone. This was done both for the use of ozone dissolved in water and for dry applications, where ozonated oxygen or air is applied to food products in a treatment chamber or directly in the storage area. Using the cost approaches as developed, it was shown that the most economical approach to generating ozone for all but small installations is to generate oxygen on-site, thus using a smaller ozone generator and saving on power cost, ozone transfer, and maintenance. The estimated costs were applied to 30 research case studies on food preservation with ozone published in various journals. This covers seven on vegetable storage, eight on fruits, four on juices, five on meat and seafood, and five on stored grain. In summary, the cost of ozonation of food articles is less than $0.01/kg of fruit, vegetable, or meat product, and about $0.002/kg grain. Fruit juices require more ozone, and the cost could be $0.01-$0.04 per liter.