Packing
Advanced
storage and packaging on site
Because the fruit from our large orchard blocks is sped to state-of-the-art
storage and packing facilities on-site, we think the taste and
crispness of our FirstFruit products is just about the best
there is.
We have a total of 105 controlled atmosphere rooms on site.
They range in size from about 700-bin capacity to 4,160 bins,
with the average size about 3,000 bins in a room -- large enough
to hold about 1/2 billion apples.
We think there’s a big advantage in different sizes of
controlled atmosphere rooms. The small rooms are ideal for storing
varietals that have short market windows. The larger rooms make
it possible to deliver fruit from one lot in our orchard and
provide a high degree of product consistency to customers involved
in promotions.
We’re proud of the new ideas and technologies we’ve
put in place to make those rooms more efficient -- and make
the fruit that our customers buy the best.
For one thing, we were one of the first companies to implement
centralized computer-control of the controlled atmosphere rooms.
Our system lets us control the temperature of each room to within
1/10th of one degree; it also gives us control over the nitrogen,
oxygen, carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere in
each room to within 1/10th of 1%. The system monitors the temperature
every 20 seconds and if necessary adjusts the atmosphere levels
every 20 minutes. If there’s a problem, it has an alarm
system that calls us at home.
When our first line started packing in September of 1987, it
was one of the most innovative in the industry. But, a lot has
changed since then. Our new 200,000 square foot packing facility
is one of the most modern facilities of its kind in the world,
and features a modern pre-size operation as well as a state-of-the-art
specialty consumer packaging line.
But perhaps the biggest advantage of First Fruits products is
the fact that the grower and packer are the same -- and the
storage and packing facilities are at the orchard.
If we pick 7,000 bins in a day, that means we’ll seal
two controlled atmosphere rooms that day. Apples that were on
a tree that morning are under controlled atmosphere that night.
We can do that because all of our fruit comes from one source.
The cold chain is maintained because as soon as it is picked
it is brought here much quicker than anyone else in he industry
can do it. It also means that we can provide our customers one-stop
shopping for several varieties throughout the year.
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| Everyone
at Broetje Orchards takes pride in the quality of their workmanship
and their commitment to deliver the freshest packed apples to their
customers on time. |
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| Safe
Quality Food |
Nothing
demonstrates our concern for quality in the orchard and packing
plant more than our certification of Food Safety assurance
in both the warehousing and growing under the SQF program.
We are the first grower in the nation to receive the certification,
which involved an independent audit of all farm, warehousing,
and packaging operations by Safe Quality Food (SQF), an Australian
agency.
SQF currently certifies 3,300 businesses in 16 countries.
SQF was developed by the Australian produce industry and is
based in Switzerland.
SQF was created in 1995 and works with the food industry world
wide to monitor produce contamination. The organization focuses
on clean hands, eliminating exposure to foreign objects in
the packaging and processing, and monitoring sources for contamination
similar to a HACCP (Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points)
process in other food manufacturing settings .
Broetje Orchards earned Third Party SQF 2000 certification
for warehousing and packaging process in August 2001 and followed
with SQF 1000 certification of the orchard farming operation
in spring 2003.
“We chose the SQF program because it helps us monitor
the safety and quality of our fruit from seed to the consumer’s
table,” Appleby says. “We were doing many of the
right things already, but now we have it on record, and being
involved in a formal program like SQF increases the awareness
of our people. It’s been a great program for us and
we don’t think anyone in our industry can touch our
accomplishment yet, mainly because other packers get their
fruit from hundreds of growers. We are the source of the fruit
we pack; we have established critical control points from
the minute the orchard fruit comes onto our property until
it leaves on a truck.”
We understand that consumers are very concerned about where
their products are coming, so we chose SQF because it is the
strictest, most stringent program of its kind in the world.
It is the highest certification we can get. Our customers
can feel comfortable and confident that our fruit is safe.
We think that’s a big advantage. |
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