Case Study: Settling Veggies For Storage At A North American Vegetable Grower

Problem

This large vegetable producer in North America was on a quest to get more vegetables into their Gaylord containers and reduce their cold storage cost, while they waited to process and package the veggies after the harvest.

Situation

When they approached MARTIN^® Vibration Systems, their process was to fill containers of various frozen vegetables after the harvest and send these to cold storage until the units are sold in bulk or packaged and sold into stores. The cold storage facility charges were based on the square-foot of the container and not by the pound.

Therefore, the goal was to aid in settling these vegetables and pack at least 5% more into each container without requiring an operator to stand and rake the contents, and to also do this without destroying the container, as they hoped to reuse each container at least three times prior to discarding.

The company deals with millions of pounds of vegetables annually, using containers that hold 1000-1500 pounds at a time, which translates to thousands of containers each year.

Solution

We recommended using a MARTIN^® VT 8 Compaction Table to gently vibrate the containers prior to cold storage. By automatically settling the vegetables, they eliminated the need for an operator with a rake. In addition to the considerable manpower savings, they avoided damaging the containers during the process and were able to get 5-8% more product into each container, saving a very significant amount on cold storage fees as well.