Tong Engineering is celebrating one year of business since the opening of its Tong U.S. spares, service and sales facility in Fremont, Michigan.

While the UK manufacturer has been exporting equipment to the U.S. for many years, the new office has strengthened Tong’s position in the U.S. vegetable market, whilst bringing American growers and packers a dedicated division for more streamlined communication and quick turnaround on spare parts and support.

“The past 12 months have been very exciting; building relationships with new and existing Tong customers, resulting in a very positive first year for Tong U.S,” said Charlie Rich, head of USA Sales at Tong. “Our U.S. office ensures our expanding customer base receives the very best customer service every step of the way. Even the simplest things like being in the same time-zone as our customers, allowing us to respond immediately to their requirements, has made such a big difference to how we do business in America,” Rich further explained.

One grower in Pennsylvania, Nate Richards of Scattered Acre Farms, appointed Tong to supply their new potato washing facility, which was commissioned in June and now sees the farm washing up to 30 tons of crop per hour.

“We traditionally sourced our handling equipment from US manufacturers, but when we went into bin storage and handling two years ago, we researched the market and found Tong Engineering’s range of advanced bin handling equipment would best meet our requirements. We worked closely with Tong and their east-coast US dealer Modern Produce Equipment, and they designed a custom-built bin handling system which included the Tong EasyFill bin filler and heavy-duty bin tipping equipment,” noted Richards.

The new washline at Scattered Acre Farms features an infeed elevator designed to receive crop from Semi trucks, before Tong’s industry leading EasyClean separator ensures effective dirt elimination prior to washing. Tong’s next generation washer with integrated de-stoner gently washes crop before it passes to a sponge dryer, followed by a Tomra Sentinal II for optical sorting.