A programme to optimise the operation of one of the UK’s leading vegetable producers has not only seen a significant increase in processing efficiency but also considerable sustainability improvements and cost reductions.
Frederick Hiam Foods is a long-established farming business, growing, packing, and supplying London wholesale markets for over 110 years. The business currently grows potatoes, onions, and parsnips for both retail, wholesale, and food service.
Having installed Wyma machinery in its busy processing line, Frederick Hiam called on the Wyma team to help improve efficiencies across the factory.
Wyma is one of the world’s leading post-harvest handling solutions providers, with over sixty years’ industry experience and customers in more than 90 markets globally. Widely recognised for a responsive, design-led approach and industry-leading products, Wyma provides tailored solutions that meet the needs of a fast-evolving horticulture industry.
“We asked Wyma to come in and look at our line to see how we could get better utilisation of our existing kit,” says Frederick Hiam Managing Director Jamie Lockhart.
“It was quite an eye opener to us when we had the line survey of our existing equipment to find that we were at best, 60% efficient on our trimmers. We’re now looking at somewhere in excess of 90%.”
Maximising Wyma expertise
Josh Stilwell, Wyma’s UK Territory Manager says the Wyma team gets a great deal of satisfaction out of working on line optimisation.
“For Wyma, our relationship with our customers doesn’t stop at sales and installation,” says Josh. “The team really takes pride in our machinery for its whole life. Working alongside our customers to get Wyma equipment working at maximum efficiency and tailored to their unique requirements is extremely rewarding.”
The Wyma team discovered a range of issues on the Frederick Hiam line, from ineffective destoning, which was causing stones to find their way into the trimming section, to poor cleaning and conveyor sweeps that were prone to blocking.
Wyma worked with Frederick Hiam to identify additional line solutions to address the key issues, which were not only a drain on productivity but also creating a higher risk of produce being damaged and wear on equipment. This included the installation of a cyclone destoner for more reliable destoning, a wet hopper to provide effective buffer storage, pre-cleaning and an accurate metered flow into the line to optimise line flow, as well as a pre-cutting polisher to better clean the crop prior to cutting. Wyma also introduced a pre-cutting lift roller sizer to split the crop flow into pre-determined diameters to optimise trimmer efficiency.
“By taking an overall look at line efficiency, and identifying the key areas where issues were occurring, we were able to introduce a range of tailored solutions that saw a significant overall improvement in performance,” says Josh
Additional sustainability benefits
Jamie Lockhart says that alongside significantly increased efficiency, the project has provided other major advantages that the business hadn’t expected at the start of the process.
“One of them is around energy,” says Jamie. “Obviously the cost of electricity is eye watering at the moment, and we are seeing somewhere in the 20 to 25% saving on energy usage.”
“The other is water. Water is an ever increasingly rare resource and we’re hopeful that this line will save somewhere in the region of 30% of the water usage.”
“What started with a single solution has actually given us significant benefits elsewhere as well.”
Other notable improvements include fewer drops and better transitions in the line, which leads to better crop presentation and lower risk of rejection due to bruising. Overall, the entire system is easier to clean, manage and operate, making the whole process more time and resource efficient.
Open, solutions-focused relationship
Jamie says the openness of the conversations Frederick Hiam Foods can have with Wyma’s sales and service teams is what he enjoys most about the relationship.