Cavendish Farms Potato Storage officially opened

Pictured at the ribbon cutting in front of the new Cavendish Farms potato storage facility in New Annan, Prince Edward Island are, from left to right: Ron Clow, General Manager and Senior Vice President of Cavendish Farms; Robert K. Irving, President of Cavendish Farms; Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, Canada’s Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, Prince Edward Island Premier Wade MacLauchlan; Manuel Becker, Vice President of Corporate Engineering of J.D. Irving, Limited; and Jubs Bristow, Vice President of Agriculture of Cavendish Farms.

October 25, 2017

Source

J.D. Irving

Cavendish Farms officially opened its new state-of-the-art potato storage facility in New Annan, Prince Edward Island. Prince Edward Island Premier Wade MacLauchlan and Lawrence MacAulay, Minister of Agriculture for the Government of Canada joined Cavendish Farms President Robert K. Irving to cut the ceremonial ribbon.

Robert K. Irving, Cavendish Farms President:

“This investment in our Prince Edward Island operation will allow us to ensure a quality supply of potatoes year round.”

“This will allow us to continue providing the best quality frozen potato products to our customers.”

The new facility is 88,000 square feet and has a refrigerated potato storage capacity of 48 million pounds. It is made up of two separate buildings with each building being 44,000 square feet.

The Tolsma System will allow Cavendish Farms to maintain consistent quality potatoes year-round for use at its two processing plants on the Island.

20,000 tons potato storage in Canada

At the end of September 2017, Tolsma-Grisnich has sent two GCU-i units in containers to a company in Canada growing potatoes for consumption.

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Getting the cooling units ready for shipping to Canada

The Green Cool Units each provide a cooling capacity of 430 kW, with glycol as the refrigerant.

The main feature of the indirect cooling system is that the temperature difference across the cooling block is kept as small as possible, which minimizes the extent to which the potatoes dry out.

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The cooling unit after installation

The storage unit comprises four cells and has energy-efficient TTR 9.40 EC fans.

Intelligent control of the automatic Vision Control storage computer allows both the ventilation and the cooling system to be controlled by a single computer, which ensures optimum matching between the two systems.

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Overview of the Potato Storage during the construction

Source: Tolsma-Grisnich

Wade MacLauchlan, Premier Prince Edward Island:

"As Canada's Food Island, our province is proud to offer high quality potatoes and frozen potato products that are enjoyed around the world.”

“Cavendish Farms' major investment in state-of-the-art storage facilities will enhance our competitive position and add to our collective prosperity."

Lawrence MacAulay, Canada’s Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food:

“Our government has set an ambitious target to export $75 billion of agri-food products by 2025.”

“Here on the Island, our potato farmers will play a key role in achieving this target. With this innovative potato storage facility, our farmers will have more opportunities to sell their products year round, while helping to grow our middle class through good jobs and long-term employment.”

“The impact of this new facility I'm sure will be felt across the Island."

There have been approximately 60 people working on the site every day since constructing began in May. The vast majority of workers are Island-based. It is estimated the construction took 120,000 person hours of work.

Robert K. Irving:

“We are proud of our roots in this province and look forward to future growth with our employees and growers.”

“It is because of their efforts that we provide great tasting French fries to customers around the world from right here on Prince Edward Island.”