Washington Fruit Company investing in expanding Yakima Packing Operations
One of Washington State’s largest and most productive apple post-harvest facilities is set to double in size with the announcement that Compac & Van Doren Sales have been awarded the contract to design and build a new sorting and packing line for Yakima’s Washington Fruit Company.
Capable of processing 500,000 bins of apples a season the new 10-Lane Compac sorter will come equipped with Compac’s latest InVision defect sorting system, complete with new patented Active Electronic Control providing increased lighting uniformity and grading accuracy.
The new building on the company’s existing River Road site in Yakima will house, along with the Compac sorter, a complete Van Doren Sales infeed system for bin tipping, washing, waxing and downstream packing equipment. Robotic palletizing will complete the line making this facility one of the most efficient apple facilities in the Pacific Northwest.
“This will be one of the most efficient post-harvest facilities in the world” says David Buys, Compac International Sales Director “Our new Active Electronic Control which is patented technology will give Washington Fruit a performance boost when it comes to sorting apples for defects”.
Compac’s new Active Electronic Control is breakthrough technology which controls the LED lighting within the InVision system for the most consistent and uniform lighting possible, presenting a higher quality image to the InVision system for grading and defect classification. This system will give operators the ability to recognize and classify difficult defects much more easily.
“We can see where Compac is heading and their commitment to research and development in both fruit handling and optical sorting systems” says Tommy Hanses of Washington Fruit “One of the key reasons we have selected a Compac sorter is their superior performance in gentle mechanical handling and our confidence that the new InVision defect sorting system will be the most advanced apple grading system available”.
In-market service and support for the new plant will be provided by Van Doren Sales, Compac’s distribution partner in the Pacific Northwest. “Once again our blend of Compac’s hi-tech solution and Van Doren Sales’ superior aftersales support has been selected to provide an industry leading project” says Bret Pittsinger, President of Van Doren Sales “Our long relationship with Compac has been a huge success for both companies, the market requires solution providers to not only deliver the best technical solution to the market but also to support it in a way which gives the customer confidence that they can run their operation without having to worry”.
For more information contact:
Nathan Soich
nathan.soich@compacsort.com