Pre-cooling can be done using several methods including hydro-cooling, vacuum cooling and forced-air cooling. Each crop usually has a “best way” to be pre-cooled, but often can be adequately cooled with an alternative method. Vegetable crops and most fruits are at their peak in quality at the time of harvest. At high temperatures quality will decline rapidly. Shelf-life may be doubled, tripled, and more at optimum distribution temperatures. The most significant feature of shelf-life extension is that at any point in time during the distribution process, the product with longer shelf-life will have better quality, freshness and nutritional value than the product that has not been properly cooled.

The advantage that pre-cooling and cold chain maintenance in distribution can offer the marketer is higher quality over extended time - time that will allow the product to be removed from the glut and low prices prevalent in its growing locale at peak harvest and delivered to distant markets. Markets during off-season areas and in large cities can offer unit margins that can be a multiple against the fixed and incremental costs of cooling and transportation. In fact, these methods are the basis for the phenomenal success of the perishable commodities industry in the United States, and recently, that enjoyed by shippers in Mexico and South America. The result is high quality, fresh produce, in year-round supply, for retailers and food service purveyors in developed areas such as Western Europe, North America, and Japan.