Innovative thinking and automation have helped a Welsh company become one of the greenest fresh produce suppliers in the UK. In the last year, Puffin Produce has seen its water usage reduce by 90% and the electricity used to wash and polish its potatoes decrease by 40%. The impressive savings are due to a radical restructuring of its Withybush factory, which has seen four production lines replaced with two state-of-the-art lines.

Puffin Produce, which is the largest supplier of Welsh produce in Wales, has worked with vegetable handling equipment specialists Haith Group since the early 2000s.

In 2016, Huw Thomas, managing director at Puffin, asked Haith Group’s sales director, Duane Hill, to look at how the company could reduce its impact on the environment. Like many of the challenges faced by Haith, the turnkey solution required the input of the company’s experienced design team and sales engineers.

“Since we installed the original lines back in 2010, we have invested significantly in research and development to make our machines the most efficient and cost-effective on the market,” says Duane. “The progress we have made in efficiency improvements allowed us to remove the four lines from Puffin’s factory and replace them with two, and doing so not only reduced their operating costs; it increased their throughput.”

Everything on the new Haith lines is automated, from receiving and grading through to progress storage and packing.

“I think it is fair to say that Puffin has one of the most advanced potato process systems in the UK,” continues Duane. “And by including all-electric drives and IE3 motors on the Rota-Tip TE box tippers, the Supa-Flume de-stoner and polishers, we have reduced Puffin’s electricity usage too. At the same time, thanks to how we have developed and improved the efficiencies of our machines, we have also given Puffin the ability to increase throughput by over 10 tons per hour.”

Huw Thomas, managing director at Puffin, is pleased with how Haith’s new line has transformed operations. “Improving the efficiency of a factory while at the same time lowering operating costs and reducing the impact on the environment is something a lot of businesses are trying to achieve. At Puffin Produce, though, thanks to our close working relationship with Haith and their talented team, we have been able to achieve that. It is fantastic that we can operate more efficiently, have the capacity to handle even more produce in the future and can lower both our utility costs and impact on the environment.”