Greenvale’s radical vegetable-cleaning ‘eco’ system set to save industry billions of litres of water, slash energy use and improve produce quality
Greenvale has released performance figures for its radical new vegetable-cleaning system, Project Cascade. The system has been running for three months at the company’s Tern Hill, Shropshire site and has not only achieved its original targets, but in almost every area is has smashed through them.
- The water saving target of just over 75% has already been met. However, Greenvale’s trial runs suggest savings of 85% are easily achievable. (The site washes 140,000 tonnes of fresh potatoes per year and the standard system used around 82 million litres of water. An 85% reduction equates to a saving of almost 70 million litres a year).
- Running costs are well below expectations – Cascade has slashed the energy cost of chilling by 55%.
- With Cascade, ten times more clean water is used to wash the product, resulting in a cleaner and brighter finish.
- Because Cascade controls bacteriological levels at every stage in the washing process, it is preventing product breakdown.
- Temperature control is uniform at all stages in the process. As well as further enhancing bacterial control, this means the product is cooled significantly before packing.
"The results are way beyond exceptions," says Andy Clarkson, general manager of Greenvale at Tern Hill. "Cascade is designed to clean potatoes but could be applied to any root vegetables. It is a truly environmental solution. Applied across the industry it will save the UK millions of pounds and billions of litres of water, every year.
"And Cascade demonstrably delivers a superior product: since its inception we have achieved our lowest customer complaints results on record."
Greenvale plans to officially launch the Cascade System in 2010, once all trials have been completed.
For more information visit the Greenvale AP website at www.greenvale.co.uk
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Editor’s notes
Greenvale AP is the UK’s leading supplier of fresh potatoes and was awarded the Queens Award for Innovation in 2006. Greenvale AP now supplies the UK’s premier retailers, caterers and processing outlets with quality potatoes, meeting the high standards demanded by the UK market.
Greenvale AP has developed sites in the major potato growing areas across the UK, resulting in three state of the art potato-packing operations situated in Shropshire, Berwickshire and Cambridgeshire. The company also has sales and marketing offices across the UK, including in Norfolk, Suffolk, Somerset, Hereford and Yorkshire. Greenvale AP’s Seed Potato operation is managed from a specialist office at Burrelton, near Perth in Scotland.