Design and development of FRP mobile fish vending trolley for hygienic fish marketing

Abstract

A mobile fish vending trolley has been designed and developed by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) - All India Coordinated Research Project on Plasticulture Engineering and Technology (AICRP on PET) centre at ICAR-Central Institute of Freshwater Aquaculture (ICAR-CIFA), Bhubaneswar to aid the fisher folks for vending their fish harvests in hygienic condition. The unique selling proposition (USP) of the vending unit is its unibody design, where icebox for storing fish, 20 l capacity water storage tank for hand washing, tool box, fish cutting deck and waste collection chambers are integrated into the unit. The icebox can store 100 kg of fish in ice which can be sold in a single day by the fisher folks. The complete unit of mobile fish vending carriage is fabricated with fibre reinforced plastic (FRP), because of its high strength compared to other plastics, ease of fabrication and good insulation property of fiberglass (i.e. thermal conductivity= 0.04 w/mK at normal room temperature 25 ºC). The dimensions of the carriage unit is 4.0’x2’9”x2’6” in which half portion is dedicated for the insulated ice box and the remaining portion houses the fish cutting deck, waste collection chamber and tool box. This fish vending trolley would be a boon for the marginal fish vendors, who want to sell fish in a hygienic condition and to increase income generation potential by selling 100 kg fish in a day.