Tree fruits plant expanding
New apple-bagging line to increase plant capacity and add 66 jobs
A new state-of-the-art apple-bagging line at BC Tree Fruits’ Winfield packing house will add 66 jobs and see more apples packed faster and fresher.
The packinghouse on Bottom Wood Lake Road is being expanded and the new line will be installed for an investment of over $1 million.
Everything is expected to be operational by the time the apple crop starts coming off the trees in the fall.
The improvements will boost the packing capacity of the plant by 30 per cent and see 66 staff added to the 180 who already work at the packing house.
Pears, cherries, peaches, apricots, plums and blueberries are also packaged at the facility, but apples are by far the biggest by volume.
“The new bagging line will give us the ability to move more fruit down the line and reduce storage times,” said BC Tree Fruits marketing manager Chris Pollock.
“When the big apple crop came in in the past, we’d have to put some in storage until we had time on the line to pack it.”
Apples are sorted and packed various ways at the Winfield plant.
They can be put in three-, five-, and sixpound bags, and then put in boxes to be shipped to distributors and stores to be sold in those bagged formats.
Or, apples are packed bulk in 42-pound boxes and shipped to distributors and stores to be sold by the pound at retailers.
BC Tree Fruits is the co-operative owned by 430 Okanagan orchardists.
The fruit from those growers is sorted, packed and shipped from one of four B.C. Tree Fruits packing houses in Winfield, Kelowna, Oliver and Osoyoos.
The Winfield facility is the biggest and handles the fruit from most growers in the Kelowna and Vernon areas.
In all, BC Tree Fruits employs 500 at its four packing houses.
BC Tree Fruits also has a cidery at its packing house in Kelowna’s North End, which makes Broken Ladder brand hard cider from Okanagan apples, pears and peaches.