Leading New Zealand grower, Bostock New Zealand, is processing a whopping 100 tonnes of onions per hour after installing new automated handling equipment from Tong Engineering.
Based in Hawke's Bay, New Zealand Bostock New Zealand has been exporting a wide variety of produce including onions, apples and kiwi fruit for over 30 years.
As part of the company's commitment to producing premium produce, Bostock needed to increase the capacity and efficiency of their onion handling process, and Tong equipment, supplied by their Dobmac Agricultural machinery, was their choice.
"After many years of positive growth, we are now exporting produce to over 20 different countries throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America," explained Neville Gillespie, XXXXXX at Bostock New Zealand. "With demand for our onions continuing to grow, we needed to upgrade our handling equipment to allow us to achieve a much higher throughput whilst improving our cleaning and inspecting capabilities."
"After many years of positive growth, we are now exporting produce to over 20 different countries throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia and North America," explained Neville Gillespie, XXXXXX at Bostock New Zealand. "With demand for our onions continuing to grow, we needed to upgrade our handling equipment to allow us to achieve a much higher throughput whilst improving our cleaning and inspecting capabilities."
"We chose to purchase Tong equipment, as our experience has proved it to deliver on capacity, and at a quality which lasts," said Neville. "We have a good relationship with their New Zealand dealer Dobmac, so we were confident that our new equipment could be specified to do the job we required."
Simon Lee, Sales Manager at Tong Engineering comments "The first phase of equipment upgrades at Bostock New Zealand allowed them to effectively receive their harvested onions with a 2.4m wide Tong Caretaker machine, incorporating 6 rows of adjustable coils for effective removal of onion waste prior to a 4 man inspection area. Further to this we have just commissioned two fully automated custom built EasyFill-style box fillers to suit their large 5 tonne onion boxes."
Simon Lee, Sales Manager at Tong Engineering comments "The first phase of equipment upgrades at Bostock New Zealand allowed them to effectively receive their harvested onions with a 2.4m wide Tong Caretaker machine, incorporating 6 rows of adjustable coils for effective removal of onion waste prior to a 4 man inspection area. Further to this we have just commissioned two fully automated custom built EasyFill-style box fillers to suit their large 5 tonne onion boxes."
Neville adds "Following the increased capacity achieved with the Caretaker, we added automation to the bin filling function on our bulk unloading line. We fill 5 tonne harvest bins at up to 100 tonnes per hour in good product conditions, which means we are now capable of a throughput of over 1000 tonnes per day. "
For more information:
Tong Engineering
Tel: +44 (0)1790 752771