Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/705612
10 AUGUST 2016 Good Fruit Grower www.goodfruit.com on May 27. "Of course, Mother Nature did nothing to help us out this year by being the earliest year ever," Gonsalves said with a smile. "She had no compassion for us whatsoever, provided us no relief." Structurally, the new warehouse underwent signif- icant changes floor to ceiling, from drains that can be easily cleaned and sanitized to a finished drop ceiling through the production area. The facility is larger — 120,000 square feet to 105,000 square feet — with the same footprint but more space in an added mezzanine. Lighting is 100 percent LED, and Blue Bird also installed 72 solar tubes and multiple large windows to bring in supplemental natural light. The design eliminated forklift traffic in the packing room itself, other than in the dumping area, to improve worker safety and reduce food safety concerns. Elevated catwalks minimize the number of visitors on the packing floor, "which also plays into food safety requirements," Gonsalves said. The centrally located mezzanine sepa- rates the cherry line and a new apple line, scheduled to be completed by mid-August. Shared restrooms, wash- ing stations and a lunchroom sit underneath. The co-op fully integrated its fire system, with lights, red strobes, sirens and sprinklers, for the entire build- ing, and there is direct access to water on the roof. Blue Bird also installed two-hour rated, fire-resistant board between the building's insulation and membranes, a step intended to buy additional time if firefighters are delayed in the event of a future fire. "That board may have protected us from losing the building before had it been up there," Gonsalves said. "Of course, we're taking all these precautions, and you typically say, 'We'll never have a fire,' but we never thought the Wenatchee facility was susceptible to fire in the past. Not located in the middle of town." Equipment upgrades Cherries enter the line through twin-feed, robotic submersible dumpers. All of the equipment on the lines is stainless steel or aluminum for sanitary purposes. Each of the three sizing lanes features three cameras on each side of the lane for optical sizing, defect sorting and measuring internal firmness. Each camera takes 10 pictures, resulting in 60 pictures per cherry in just a frac- tion of a second. There also are more options for defect and color sorting: dark and light, finding scars, stemless and doubles, sorting for shape and softness, said Ralph Deleon, who has worked for manufacturer MAF for 17 years and is stationed at Blue Bird as the co-op works with the new equipment. "The software has more capabilities, higher definition of the photos of the fruit," he said. A hydro-cooling unit holds 200 tons of refrigeration, and a smaller, independent unit with a separate water source serves the longer line that can pack organic or conventional fruit. Another tank contains 100 percent ozonized water from an onsite ozone generator for the last fruit treatment before fruit is packed into the differ- ent style cartons. "Typically, the industry is either treating with food grade fungicides of different sorts, but we've elimi- nated all of the fungicides and ozone is working well," Gonsalves said. "We ship all across the country, all around the world, and residual components, MRLs, are playing into our treatment with ozone. And right now, we're satisfied with the effectiveness of it." A six-lane apple line lost in the fire is being replaced by an eight-lane MAF line, with upgraded defect sorting and sanitation technologies. A robotic stacker grabs each bin, weighs it and then pressure-washes the feet of the bin and the skid before dumping the fruit. The bin then is pressure-washed again, inside and out, and re-nested into a stack of three, all before leaving the warehouse and returning to the field. "This is a technology that's used in a lot of facilities in Europe, but this is one of the first installations here that has fully integrated bin washing on the line itself," Gonsalves said. "We're pretty excited about getting that online." • Employee washing stations and restrooms are centrally located between the cherry processing facility and future apple processing facility.