In our packing facility we are constantly adding new technology and practices to ensure only the highest quality potatoes make it to our customers. We were the first potato farm on the Eastern Shore of Virginia to build a cold storage room (7 trailer load capacity) in 1990. With that room we were able to pack loads in advance and store them for pickup. Removing the field heat significantly improved the shelf life of our potatoes, giving retailers some extra time to stock them and consumers a fresher product for consumption.
A new problem quickly arose, we had more packing capacity than we had cold storage. So in 2000 we built a second 7 trailer load capacity cold storage room.
In 2004 we installed a VOLM weigher and bagger to increase our retail packaging capability to 50 bags a minute, nearly quadrupling production.
2009 brought us a Tomra Titan color sorter. By automating the sorting of our potatoes, we could more efficiently grade and process our potato crop. Just four years later in 2013, we upgraded to a Titan II. Our sorting system pulls the #2 grade and culled produce while allowing the most desirable #1's into the packing area for human inspection.
Our process evolution led us to significantly increase our potato production to meet the market need for high quality potatoes. But as our shipments grew, we began to see significant bottlenecks due to the unpredictable nature of scheduling product pick-up. We needed more cold storage capacity to keep the processing line running. So in 2019, we built a third cold storage room with capacity for 10 more trailer loads. Today our total storage capacity is at 24 trailer loads, and we are rarely below 20 trailer loads stored at any given time.
5280 Fleming Rd.
Horntown, VA 23395
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