The company from Valencia highlights R&D+i in its new Post-harvest Technology Centre.
The building, inaugurated at the beginning of July and fitted with laboratories and a pilot plant, intends to become the reference point for its segment in research in Europe.
“The post-harvest fruit losses are estimated between 12% and 25% and we have spent over 50 years providing solutions for producers and exporters, extending the useful lifespan of this fruit”, the general and scientific manager of the company, Benito Orihuel, pointed out. “We began with citrus fruits, then we moved on to bananas, and also to pip fruit and more recently, to peppers and our latest additions are tomatoes and avocadoes”.
The new building triples the surface area used by laboratories. It has a post-harvest vegetable physiology department, fitted with a Texturometer and a colorimeter; a chemistry laboratory, equipped with two HPLCs, a spectrophotometer and a gas chromatograph; and a third microbiology laboratory. The laboratories pursue analytical efficiency, faster responses, developing new diagnosis methods (detection of ‘in vivo’ resistances), preventing the possible appearance of post-harvest physiopathies and developing new research projects.
Laboratories cover the upper part of the building. Inside, the pilot plant is fitted with an emulsion manufacturing reactor, a drencher, which will implement new developments, treatment line application units, along with cold storage and degreening rooms.
The new Post-harvest Technology Centre is framed within a much larger project, which has a budget of over 4 million euros. Juanjo Febrer, chairman of the Board of Directors, stated “The new facilities will be up and running in September, ready for the start of the new campaign”.
This new factory will mean doubling the production capacity and a new industrial type building will be available for storage and dispatch of finished produce. A new loading bay and a machine room are also being developed.
The work will be completed with the refurbishment of the warehouse, as well as the workshop that will be transformed into a raw material shed. The manufacturing buildings for intermediate produce and for final produce will also be extended.
At the opening ceremony customers, brokers, suppliers, universities and collaborating technological centres, along with workers from the company were all present, as well as different institutional authorities, amongst them the President of the Generalitat Valenciana, Ximo Puig, and the Mayoress of Potríes, Assumpta Dominguez. After signing the Visitors’ Book, Ximo Puig emphasised the role of companies such as Citrosol, who work to boost development and economic progress. Assumpta Dominguez underscored the lasting link that ties Citrosol to Potríes, and she emphasised the importance for the town of having some cutting edge facilities in the area.
