As a somewhat new player in terms of the North American market, not many people may have heard about Besseling Group controlled atmosphere (CA) equipment. But with over 1,000 CA installations in more than 30 different countries, the company believes that\u2019s beginning to change.
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\u201cFor over 90 years, the Besseling family has been growing, trading, exporting and storing fruit,\u201d Migiel Besseling, president of Besseling North America, who started offering CA equipment in Canada and the United States in 2012, said in a news release.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur first cold storage facility was in the early \u201950s, and the construction of the first CO2<\/sub> adsorber was in 1965,\u201d Besseling said. \u201cBeing directly related to the owner of the Dutch CA equipment manufacturer Besseling Group means we\u2019re able to share global knowledge while offering local support.\u201d<\/p>\n The main North American office is in Oliver, British Columbia and the company has partners in Washington, Michigan, Indiana, New York and Ontario for support and service.<\/p>\n Besseling said the company is a one-stop shop for CO2<\/sub> adsorbers, nitrogen generators, ethylene converters, dynamic controlled atmosphere (DCA) monitors, atmosphere control stations, Salco gastight CA doors, and RibbStyle CA coatings.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of our fruit growers\u2019 background we understand the storage of produce extremely well. So all of our equipment is built with that in mind,\u201d Besseling said. \u201cOur CO\u00b2 adsorbers are fitted with a type of butterfly valves that can practically never get stuck, something that we hear happens often.\u201d<\/p>\n Besseling\u2019s activated carbon beds can be expected to last the lifetime of the machine, the release stated.<\/p>\n \u201cOur nitrogen generators are already capable of storing organic fruit under ultra low oxygen (ULO), whereas some other CA equipment isn\u2019t,\u201d said Besseling, who stressed these approaches help assure growers the equipment does what is expected.<\/p>\n One of Besseling\u2019s most significant 2016 projects was a new 90,000-square-foot packing facility for Sandher Fruit Packers in British Columbia, according to the company release.<\/p>\n The Sandher family is one of western Canada\u2019s largest apple growers, focusing on Ambrosia, Gala and Honeycrisp. Sandher also is one of Canada\u2019s largest late cherry producers. The new building has a steel frame, walls of insulated sandwich panels, an insulated floor, and features two cold store rooms and six high efficiency CA rooms that can store an estimated 17,500 bins (375,000 bushels) of fresh fruit.<\/p>\n The facility uses a secondary refrigeration system installed by Versatile Refrigeration, and the packing area features of the first Unitec apple lines in North America with four lanes and a Unitec optical sorter. The Sandher family brought the first Unitec optical cherry sorting line to North America in 2009.<\/p>\n \u201cBesseling was involved in every aspect of the building, and considering the fact that they broke ground in January and finished in September, it was a daredevil feat,\u201d Migiel Besseling said. \u201cAs the forklifts were bringing in the first harvest bins, we were crossing t\u2019s and dotting i\u2019s. Everything came together really well, and the customer is very pleased with the result. The marketers also said recently that there is exceptional quality fruit coming out, so this turnkey project turns out to be a very rewarding investment.\u201d<\/p>\n A 2015 project brought Besseling North America to Washington-based Conrad & Adams Fruit, which operates the former Snokist and Andrus & Roberts warehouses in Grandview and Sunnyside. It is a grower-packer-shipper of conventional and organic apples, conventional and organic pears, cherries, peaches, nectarines, Italian prunes and plums from the Yakima Valley.<\/p>\n When Conrad & Adams made the decision to replace lime with six CO2<\/sub> adsorbers spread out over four buildings at two locations, it chose to go with Besseling.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything is tied together and works so well, that I tend to forget about our scrubbers sometimes,\u201d Carl Costello, Conrad & Adams plant manager, said in the news release. \u201cThey never seem to give me any concerns. I\u2019ve recently ordered a Salco CA door from them as well.\u201d<\/p>\n The latest Besseling product introduced to the North American market is the Fruit Observer \u2013 a chlorophyll fluorescence response monitor to determine the physiological condition of the fruit while in ULO storage. It was developed in cooperation with the University of Lleida, a leading Spanish institute for research and education in agronomy and food technology.<\/p>\n