Pre-Processing

Engineering initiatives form the basis of two other areas of R&D. By managing the reception, grading, washing, halving and peeling of potatoes we can add value to the supply chain and return processing value payments to our growers. By carrying out these processes on the crispers' premises we can actually manage a part of the crisping process.

We have piloted this initiative with two customers very successfully and have seen several significant advantages. We can better manage quality to ensure rejections are minimised without compromising our customers' specifications, we can reduce costs and we can better reward high quality growers.

In 2012 we opened a major pre-prcessing facility at one of our customer's sites. The investment was in excess of £750,000 and involved grading, washing and optically sorting upto 450 tonnes of potatoes per day. The line is operational 24/7 to match our customer's operation and is manned by Higgins personnel.

 

Throughout the season it has presented quality washed and graded loads into the line and enabled maximum utilisation of the crop at minimum cost.