Customer Service and Proven Experience: An Unbeatable Combination
Excellent customer service and proven experience: it’s a combination that’s hard to beat; just ask Greens of Soham. Greens of Soham is the UK’s largest supplier of fresh beetroot and has seen demand more than treble in the last five years. However, the continued increase in sales of this superfood has delivered challenges for the Cambridgeshire company.
“Future-proofing and ensuring that we are prepared to meet increased demand is something we are constantly trying to juggle,” says Greg Colebrook, Director of Farming at Greens of Soham. “In April 2021, we were in exactly that situation. We had just received news that one of our customers wanted to increase their capacity, and as there had been another wave of interest in superfoods, we were confident that other customers would follow suit. We knew that the washer at our Soham site inefficient and unreliable, and if it wasn’t upgraded, we would be unable to handle the increase.”
Green of Soham’s 15-year-old washer was fed by a cyclone de-stoner, which Haith had installed in 2019 and, in the following two years, had performed consistently well.
“The Haith de-stoner is excellent and is incredibly easy for us to maintain,” says Greg. “During and after its installation, Haith’s customer service was first class, and given their experience in designing and installing beetroot systems, we didn’t look very far from Haith for the project.”
Haith’s Cyclone De-Stoner offers efficient, gentle and high-capacity stone separation from produce.
Stones and crop are transferred to the top of the machine, where a high-efficiency pump and rotary paddle create a water vortex which allows the beetroot to travel around the circumference of the cone.
The stones fall to the bottom of the cyclone, where they exit the machine via the heavy-duty stone elevator. The beetroot leaves the de-stoner through a discharge flume onto a dewatering web and is transferred to the adjacent washer.
Greens of Soham have Haith’s largest de-stoner, which has a three-metre diameter, giving the maximum separation for the beetroot. Carrots, swede and parsnips can also be separated from stones as large as 300mm in diameter and at a rate of up to 75 tonnes per hour.
In July 2021, Haith was back on site and installing the wash system.
The installation team began by raising the existing de-stoner and connecting it via a flume system to a large self-clean barrel washer, which operates at 30 tonnes per hour, a 50% increase on the previous washer’s capacity.
To find out more about Haith and its range of vegetable handling equipment, please visit our Machinery Section, email sales@haith.co.uk or call 01302 831 911.
