Mid-Week Run September 13th to Trevelyan’s Packhouse Complex, Te Puke.
The meeting place for September’s midweek run was Trevelyan’s packhouse in Te Puke. For nearly all the around 30 VCC folk who turned up, this was their first visit to a Kiwifruit Packhouse/ Coolstore Complex and it proved to be most educational. Over morning tea, Rachel Brodie, the Sustainability Manager, spoke to us about the beginnings, the ethos, the range of operations and growth of this premier establishment in the kiwifruit industry. We learned about their core values and the way they employ and treat their staff, about bio-security of their product and maintenance of their whole operation. We were told that Trevelyan’s is the largest single-site complex in the country and last year packed 33 million trays of kiwifruit (plus avocados in the ‘off season’). As an example of the way they treat their staff, all those working today were given extra time over morning tea to come out and have a look at the vintage and classic cars parked outside – some wanted a photo of themselves in the driving seat! Following that, we all donned hi-vis jackets and hair nets for our tour around the complex. With Rachel and Marie as our guides we walked carefully along the edges of the roadways where forklifts whizzed up and down at ‘breakneck’ speed. We went into a coolstore with giant fans keeping the temperature around 2 degrees Celsius (brrrrr!) then we listened as Donna showed us the recycling area and told us the remarkable progress the business has made in the last five years by reducing their landfill rubbish by 70% and by providing a recyclable market for a good deal of the huge volume of rubbish generated by a working packhouse.
All jacketed up and ready to go
Getting safety instructions
A Vast area for offloading fruit
Inside one of the 33 coolrooms 12