As part of an ongoing commitment to the export vegetable market, Tong Engineering has completed another large-scale carrot washing and handling facility, capable of handling 40 tonnes of crop per hour, for Polish fruit and vegetable producer, Polfarm.
The custom built stainless steel carrot washing, grading and processing line incorporates some of the largest washing and vegetable hydrocooler equipment manufactured by Tong Engineering, including a 12.5 metre long, 15000kg capacity wet hopper which offers effective presoaking of carrots prior to washing.
At the infeed of the new carrot line, a high capacity Tong Storemaker hopper-cleaning system with Tong’s market leading EasyClean separator, offers bulk unloading of the company’s carrot crop, and effective removal of soil and haulm from carrots prior to the washing process.
The carrot washing line begins with a 40 ton per hour cyclone vegetable destoner followed by the large presoak tank which feeds two 5m long stainless steel barrel washers, four carrot polishers and a large Hydro-Cooler which cools crop for increased longevity and shelf-life. Carrots are graded by diameter by a series of Tong’s lift roller graders, and also by length with a number of vibrating length graders, before they are transferred for packing.
Michał Gulczyński of Polfarm commented: “We have worked with Tong Engineering through our local dealer, HTech, over recent years to upgrade our vegetable handling processes in order to minimise labour requirements as well as increasing throughput. We started by updating our washing and grading facilities for our celeriac and parsley root crops with a complete line from Tong, and further to the success of this line, proceeded with a second line from Tong for our carrot crop.”
“Our new Tong carrot line is now up and running, and processes up to 40 tonnes of carrots per hour, so it really has to stand up to demand! With the increased capacity that the new line offers, we are able to process more crop per hour, meaning running and labour costs are significantly reduced whilst output is increased. Not only that, the new washing lines are very easy to maintain which saves our operators a lot of time.”
Charlie Rich, export sales manager for Tong, continued; “Having worked with Polfarm on their previous celeriac and parsley root handling project, we were able to fully understand the company’s requirements for the new carrot grading and handling facility. We worked closely with Michael and our dealer, HTech, to design a line that incorporates grading, washing, polishing and cooling within a compact and efficient line.”
“The new carrot line at Polfarm was installed and commissioned in line with the company’s key carrot processing season, and with dealer HTech closeby, Polfarm have a local contact for any future service or sales requirements.”