One of Ireland’s leading fresh produce providers has completed a significant investment to meet the growing demand for carrots, working with the Haith Group.
Meade Farm Group, which started as a local potato supplier, has reportedly increased its throughput by over a third. This has been achieved by the installation of a state-of-the-art carrot grading and washing line from Haith.
Taking six months to deliver, the system includes two optical sorters, washing, de-stoning and polishing machinery and integrates optical grading from Newtec, which supplied a Celox optical sorter.
The line is capable of handling 12 tonnes per hour, with carrots entering a Haith Supa-flow receiving hopper, before going through a pre-soak immersion tank, a Haith SupaWash and MkIII polisher, before finally having the temperature lowered by a Hydrocooler and being sorted by size and quality.
“Meade Farm has been a valued customer for several years, and as they’ve grown, they’ve asked us to design and install increasingly sophisticated packing lines for them. Meade prides itself on delivering quality produce to its customers, and our vegetable handling machinery plays a key part in this,” said Duane Hill, managing director of the Haith Group.
“Meade uses five of our root veg polishers, seven of our self-cleaning barrel washers and four Haith Rota-Tip box tipplers, and we are incredibly appreciative of their loyalty to us.”
Philip Meade Sr started selling potatoes in 1977, with the Meade Potato Company being incorporated five years later. In the years that followed, Meade’s passion for potatoes extended to Irish vegetables, including carrots and onions. The company changed its name to Meade Farm Group in 2020 to reflect the broad range of produce it supplies.
“We believe that if you are going to be sustainable, you have to be innovative. This philosophy saw us become the first company to export Irish potatoes by boat in 1996, bring back washed potatoes in the late 1980s and repeatedly invest in our facilities and gain the benefits of using the latest in vegetable handling machinery.
“Duane and his team share our passion for innovation and back this up with excellent customer service. That’s why we keep trusting Haith to deliver what we need,” said Robert Devlin, executive director for Meade Farm Group.