Last Saturday, 20 years in business and the completion of the new building at Waterman Onions were both celebrated with an Open Day. Around 3000 people took the opportunity to take a peek behind the scenes.
In 1998 Wim and Eric Waterman moved from Zeeland to Emmeloord to start their company 'Waterman Onions' on the Cantineweg. Due to the rapid growth a new company building was built in 2002 with storage, sorting and packaging capacities at the current location on the Hannie Schaftweg 12. In 2010 another 5000 m2 of storage and processing space was built. A further expansion was realised in 2014 with an extension to the canteen, offices, weighing and work place. The expansion that has now been realised contains extra storage and drying facilities and expansion of the expedition space and the loading docks.
The company now processes between 3000 and 4000 tonnes of onions per week. The capacity of the company is around 150,000 tonnes of onions. They want to use this capacity through more efficient use of the machine park. This can be achieved by working in two shifts so the machines are being used 16 hours a day. At the moment there are 80 employees at Waterman Onions. The assortment supplied to retailers has expanded in recent years. All Allium relatives are theoretically available. Yellow onions make up 85% of the day to day trade. Yellow New Zealand onions are also processed around this period at the end of the Dutch season. These are better quality at this time which is important at Waterman. Red onions for the European market come from Egypt at the moment.
The guests were welcomed by the brothers Erik and Wim Waterman, after which tours were given in groups, passing all company processes. What stands out is the efficient routing of the product. There is a lot of use of transport bands (kilometres). The advantage is that in this method of working the amount of box handling with forklifts is reduced dramatically. In 10 bunkers of 35 tonnes, equipped with large ventilators, the onions are stored before being processed. There is a large automatic box filler in the arrival hall with a capacity of two boxes at a times, once again they chose to limit box movements as much as possible here. The boxes are then placed in the storage hall. The first two weeks after arrival the onions are placed on hot air after which they are ready for further processing.
Team Waterman Onions
The company has a small packaging department where various packagings can be repaired. The product is weighed with modern weighing equipment. The onions are primarily packaged from 500 grams in nets. Besides small packaging up to 1000 kilo is possible. The new 8400 m2 hall that was completed last year has 10 storage cells, six high, with a storage capacity of 10000 tonnes of onions. Enough to last 3 weeks in production. Waterman has more sight and grip on the product with the expansion of the storage capacity, as the onions were previously stored with local farmers. There is now also uniform storage which ensures a constant quality. The onion boxes that are stacked 6 high behind a drying wall, are provided with separate ventilators per row. Each row has movable sensors to measure the air humidity and temperature.
Author: Andries Gunter
Source: www.agf.nl