Rainier Fruit and Allan Bros. Fruits Unveil State-of-the-Art Packing Line
SELAH, WA - Long-standing partnerships like the one between Rainier Fruit and Allan Bros. Fruit are hard to come by, but the two managed to lock down a mutually beneficial relationship in 1995. The two most recently teamed up to create a new demand-based packing line that can easily transition to different customer’s needs. Allan Bros. invested in a $35 million apple packing facility, which is where this ambitious initiative blossomed.
“This is just one example of how Rainier Fruit and our family of growers like Allan Bros. are looking ahead and utilizing technology to drive sales opportunities,” remarked Andy Tudor, Vice President of Business Development at Rainier Fruit. “Our customers around the world are asking for more on-demand services and these past few years we’ve accepted that challenge to make capital improvements that are some of the best in the world and on-trend with the expectations of new packs and new varieties.”
Allan Bros. specializes in growing premium apple varieties such as Honeycrisp, Envy™, Jazz™, and Pink Lady®. According to a press release, this upgrade allows Allan Bros., and in turn Rainier Fruit, to keep up with the needs of the ever-changing apple category and the demands for custom packs that drive retail sales opportunities.
“Our new packing warehouse and line will equip us with predictive analytics and very precise handling of our fruit,” said Miles Kohl, Allan Bros. Fruits' CEO. “We inaugurated the new facility and modern technology with the fall harvest and we couldn’t be more thrilled with the results that are yielding new efficiencies in our final outputs.”
The new apple packing facility includes a hybrid line that maximizes output by utilizing its capability of pre-sizing fruit. This line allows for a reduction of fruit handling and labor, which in turn avoids bruising or damaging the fruit. Additionally, the state-of-the-art technology also includes proprietary operational analytics software and Compac LED color and defect sorting, as well as near infrared internal imaging that helps gather additional information on every apple.
What other great initiatives by Rainier and Allan Bros. will come to fruition? Follow along with us at AndNowUKnow as we continue to report.
