Looking for quality
For 25 years of work, the director of the agricultural enterprise "Tremonvillers" (EARL de Tremonvillers) Damien Renard has received many quality certificates, including QUALITAIR, GRASP - GlobalG.AP, HVE 3—th level. Sometimes the availability of such certificates is a prerequisite for cooperation with large industry customers. In addition, such certificates make it possible to realistically assess the efficiency of production processes, since in order to obtain them, an enterprise must undergo a thorough preliminary audit.
An unquenchable passion for innovation
At the Tremondville farm it is not customary to work according to the old schemes: they are constantly looking for ways of development, monitoring the emergence of new methods and investing in effective technologies. This principle originated several decades ago, when the Renard family was one of the first in the region to use irrigation systems and grow different types of vegetables, especially potatoes.
180 hectares of potatoes, 10 hectares of beets
The Tremondville farm in the French department of Oise is owned by the third generation of the Renard family and is now managed by Damien and Nathalie Renard.
The Picardy region has historically grown wheat, rapeseed, rye and sugar beets - these crops now occupy more than 100 hectares of farm land. Despite the fact that the Tremondville farm was not specialized in growing potatoes, changes in the common agricultural policy of the EEC and several dry periods prompted the owners to diversify. Thus, 30 hectares for potatoes and another 150 hectares for red beets were added to the 10 hectares intended for the development of already mastered crops.
The harvested crop is sold in bulk or in soft containers and delivered to fresh produce markets, food processing plants and trading companies. Farm "Tremonvilliers" cooperates with key companies in the food industry, including large producers of French fries in France, Italy, Great Britain, the Netherlands and other European countries.
Sorting before selling
When harvesting the autumn harvest, due to the density of the local soil, the roots are covered with a layer of earth. To sell them, you must first sort out products of inadequate quality, for example, green tubers, and also remove clods of earth and stones. For a person who works 8 hours a day, this is not an easy task. But new optical sorters of the latest generation cope with it flawlessly. After getting to know the equipment at an industry show and taking a closer look at the installation options on his colleague's farm at the end of 2019, Damien Renard decided to purchase a sorter The TOMRA 3A .
In addition to the improvement in quality due to the automation of the process, an additional argument in favor of the acquisition was the possibility of establishing complete control over production. With the advent of the optical sorter TOMRA production operations have become more stable and continuous. By sorting the tonnes of vegetables of high quality during peak harvest periods, the farm was able to increase its output without hiring additional labor.
TOMRA 3A: the ideal employee
The farm has two managers, two full-time employees and two part-time assistants throughout the year. Harvesting potatoes requires the involvement of seasonal workers - and this is at least five people just to sort the tubers coming from the field.
Residents of nearby areas are in no hurry to take on hard monotonous work, and mercenaries from other regions are not always able to adapt to the local environment. Therefore, for 20 years now, farmers have had occasional difficulties in hiring seasonal workers. Such difficulties could have turned into disaster this year when states have closed borders to contain the spread of the virus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fortunately, at the end of 2019, Damien Renard made the decision to purchase an optical sorter.
TOMRA 3A gets the job done faster and better than five seasonal workers. The plant provides a constant level of quality, high processing speed, and it is also ready for operation at any time of the day or night, maintaining a high harvest rate. Such versatility is fundamentally important, because during the harvest season everything depends on the weather: work can stop even for half a day due to rain and then drag on until late at night; sometimes you have to shift the weekend to keep up with the plan. Because of this, it is impossible to determine the final cost of labor - it varies from year to year, since it is highly dependent on unpredictable amounts of overtime.
Install now TOMRA The 3A handles 30 tons of products per hour, and it takes only 30 minutes to load the semi-trailer with carefully sorted products of the highest quality.
Fast assembly
Purchase decision TOMRA 3A was adopted in December 2019. In June 2020, the sorter was ordered and three months later, in September of this year, it was installed on the Tremondville farm under a canopy located at the unloading conveyor of the potato harvester.
Equipment setup and staff training took only two days.
“During the project management phase, two worlds interact: the world of agriculture meets the world of industrial production, the family business comes into contact with standardized installation and configuration processes. Delivery and installation went very smoothly, we only had to provide the information necessary to document the plan, ”commented Damien Renard.
After the departure of specialists TOMRA technical support functions are performed by remote control system... Thanks to her, in the event of unforeseen situations, you do not need to wait for the arrival of a technical specialist. Rapid diagnostics, problem solving and resumption of work in record time is provided by after-sales service specialists located in the nearest offices of the company in the cities of Mülheim-Kerlich (Germany) and Montpellier (France).
The new solution made it possible to radically improve production and adapt to changes in conditions that have complicated the work of farmers for more than 20 years. Operators can work independently using an intuitive touchscreen interface to control the unit. Application TOMRA 3A enabled Tremondville to improve its sorting of vegetables and significantly improve product quality.
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