Overview: Protecting High-Value Potato Inventories
Potato cold storages handle large volumes of perishable stock where even minor temperature or humidity deviations can lead to quality loss, customer complaints, and revenue leakage. For multi-facility operators, maintaining consistent conditions across chambers and locations is critical for long-term supply reliability and brand reputation.
This case study explains how a leading potato cold storage operator modernized its monitoring approach with an IoT-based remote solution, gaining continuous visibility into chamber conditions and reducing dependence on manual checks.
Business Context: Complex Requirements for Potato Storage
A leading cold storage operator with multiple facilities across the country faced challenges in maintaining consistent storage conditions for potatoes. Different segments required distinct temperature bands, typically around 2–4°C for fresh consumption potatoes and 4–10°C for chipping and processing varieties, making precise control across chambers essential.
With multiple chambers running simultaneously and varying set points, the team needed a reliable way to monitor and maintain these temperature ranges without relying solely on on-site operators and weekly log entries.
The Challenge: Limitations of Traditional Monitoring Systems
Their cold storage facility mostly stored potatoes and their major difficulty was to maintain the optimum temperature level for different sections of their facility to prevent the spoilage and decay of potatoes. This mainly because different variety of potatoes require different storage environment as per their consumption purpose. Before implementing our solution, the client relied on traditional wired probes and manual monitoring practices. These outdated methods presented several operational inefficiencies.
- Infrequent Monitoring: Operators typically logged conditions only once a week, delaying the detection of drifts in temperature or humidity that could affect stored potatoes.
- Questionable data reliability: Ageing probes and inconsistent sensor maintenance often produced doubtful readings, forcing managers to operate on partial or inaccurate information.
- No real-time oversight for management: Senior managers depended on local staff to share updates, with no independent visibility from head office into chamber performance.
- High manual dependency: Recording, consolidating, and reviewing logbooks consumed time and was prone to human error, especially during peak seasons.
These challenges contributed to higher spoilage rates, energy inefficiencies, and operational bottlenecks. The client needed a cold storage monitoring solution that could provide real-time, remote insights into key parameters like temperature, humidity, and CO2 levels.
Our Solution: An IoT-Enabled Cold Storage Monitoring System
To address these challenges, DATOMS deployed an IoT-based cold storage monitoring solution tailored for potato warehouses. The implementation combined field hardware, connectivity, and a cloud-based application into a single, easy-to-use system.
How the System Works
A gateway device continuously collects data from ambient sensors installed inside the cold storage chambers.
The gateway securely transmits this data to the cloud in real time, without requiring complex on-site IT infrastructure.
Facility managers and stakeholders access a unified web and mobile dashboard to monitor all critical parameters, locations, and chambers from anywhere.
Key Features of DATOMS IoT based Monitoring System:
Continuous monitoring of temperature, humidity, and CO₂ for potato chambers.
Real-time web and mobile dashboards for managers, accessible on the move or from head office.
Automated alerts and notifications when parameters cross configured thresholds, enabling timely intervention.
Reduction of manual logging through automated data capture and digital records.
Simple setup that does not require advanced technical skills, making it suitable for existing facilities.
| Aspect | Earlier Approach (Manual / Legacy) | With DATOMS IoT Monitoring |
|---|---|---|
| Data collection | Weekly manual logging by on-site operators | Continuous, automated data capture from sensors |
| Management visibility | Limited to local staff reports | Centralized real-time dashboard for all facilities |
| Issue detection | Reactive; deviations caught late | Proactive; alerts on threshold breaches |
| Data reliability | Dependent on probe health and logbook accuracy | Standardized digital records over time |
| Decision-making | Experience-driven and manual | Data-driven with historical trends and patterns |
Impact on Cold Storage Operations
By adopting IoT-based remote monitoring, the operator gained significantly better control over chamber conditions for potato storage. Real-time visibility helped the team act faster on deviations, reducing the operational risk associated with undetected temperature or humidity fluctuations.
The continuous data stream also improved maintenance planning for probes and sensors, as anomalies in readings could be traced and addressed more systematically. Over time, trend analysis enabled managers to understand temperature distribution within the facility, identify hot and cold spots, and optimize chamber loading and air circulation patterns.
Encouraged by the operational benefits, the company has initiated plans to extend the remote monitoring solution to its other cold storage units as part of its standard operating model.
Why Potato Cold Storages Choose DATOMS
DATOMS cold storage monitoring solutions are designed for operators handling sensitive, high-volume commodities like potatoes, fruits, vegetables, dairy, meat, poultry, and pharmaceuticals. The platform brings together hardware, connectivity, analytics, and alerting to help teams protect product quality while improving operational efficiency.
Typical stakeholders who benefit include:
Multi-location cold storage operators managing large potato inventories
Facility managers responsible for maintaining strict environmental conditions
Owners and promoters seeking better transparency and control over remote sites
Take the Next Step: Modernize Your Potato Cold Storage
If your team still relies on manual logs and periodic checks, implementing real-time IoT monitoring can transform how you manage chamber conditions and protect inventory quality. DATOMS provides an end-to-end solution from sensor integration to dashboards, alerts, and analytics for cold storages of all sizes.
To explore how this approach can fit your facilities, reach out at contact@datoms.io or visit the cold storage monitoring solution page to schedule a discussion with a DATOMS expert.
