Italian Fruit Farmers Use Hill Caves to Help Cut Energy Bills

Apple farmers in the north of Italy are using natural refrigerators carved under a hillside to store their harvest in a controlled environment that remains at a constant temperature in all seasons.

Three hundred metres beneath their fruit orchards in Predaia, a small town in the Trentino region, the Melinda group has created 34 refrigeration areas in vast caves, where they are able to keep 12-13% of their produce and cut their energy costs.

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PHOTO: People walk inside a natural refrigerator, carved under the rocks of the Dolomites, where fruit farmers are storing their harvest in an effort to cut energy bills © REUTERS/Matteo Berlenga