Major French Potato Packer orders new Herbert washline

Herbert Engineering has secured a major European order for a new potato washline incorporating a 4m Barrel Washer and specially adapted destoner to be installed by the end of the year.

Herbert's French distributor Filpack made the introduction of Herbert to potato packers Ets Gourgues, who were impressed by the build quality of Herbert's machines and the high standard of customer care.

Ets Gourgues are potato packers based near Bordeaux, producing approximately 20,000 – 25,000 tons of premium quality potatoes each year to French supermarket chains. The new potato washline is a replacement and upgrade of an existing system, and will offer throughputs of between 15-17 tonnes per hour.

Initially, Herbert arranged a site visit to two of their existing washlines in the Netherlands and Belgium, to demonstrate to Patrick Gourgues how the systems worked and could be adapted to suit the needs of different businesses. Having seen the washlines in operation allowed the customer to work closely with Herbert to design the correct layout for their washline, and several options were looked at and revised drawings presented to Gourgues before the final decision was made.

The new washline incorporates a delivery elevator, delivering dirty potatoes into a specially adapted destoner, before they pass into a 4 meter Barrel Washer for cleaning. Once the potatoes have been washed, they are dried via a 15 row roller drier and then moved onto a grader module where they are graded to remove smalls.