MTX Ripening Technology

The new 42 pallet ripening rooms were designed to work with the existing direct expansion refrigeration rack on site that fed the previous generation of ripening rooms. The project was completed over 3 months, allowing for minimal interruption to the facility’s day to day activities. The project was carried out with local RBQ trades and delivered to the client on schedule.

Project Details:

• The ripening rooms were constructed within an active distribution centre which made communication between both MTX construction staff and local management key to the success of the project
• The new ripening rooms were constructed with both variable frequency drives and partial loading capability to ensure both energy efficient use of the rooms as well as flexibility for changing load requirements
• All 12 of the ripening rooms were networked back to an operator control station, allowing the ripener to both monitor and update recipe setpoints
• The project featured 3 special back tracking sectional doors which were required due to column interference which were designed in co-operation with MTX’s gas-tight door manufacturer
• Shortly after the project was completed, a cellular alarming system was added as a mean of redundancy to ensure any faults were emailed to maintenance and ripening staff. This was part of a larger initiative at multiple facilities to help minimize product loss due to faults or failures occurring in off hours or on holidays

The Requirements

The roots of Winfresh are dated back to 1961. Due to their ever growing success, Winfresh required extra accommodation at their impressive Stanstead ripening facility.

The Solution

MTX produced a fi tout design for an existing single storey warehouse to house 14 extra 36 pallet 3 tier ripening rooms. Works began in June 2019 with the site set up and construction of the shell walls and ceiling.

The fitout comprised of the 14no 36 pallet 3 tier ripening rooms, in addition to a new external plant compound which houses 3 new chillers. The building was installed and handed over in just 17 weeks.

Main Considerations

As this is a live working environment with fruit being ripened all through the day and night, MTX’s main consideration was to ensure works in the neighbouring warehouse were not disrupted. In order to achieve this, the project team kept self-contained by managing site deliveries appropriately and ensuring the interface with the existing facilities were maintained and managed, which included good health & safety practice and excellent environmental management.

Given the requirement to continue ripening bananas locally at the facility throughout the duration of the rebuild the project was completed in two 10-week segments. This allowed for half of the ripening rooms to be used as the construction phases were completed. Given both the existing site conditions and seismic nature of the Vancouver coast the design of the room structures were redesigned in cooperation with a local structural engineering firm to meet the stringent requirements.

Project Details:

• MTX office was responsible for developing and submitting permit submission for the tenant improvement. Given the progressive nature of the province of British Columbia some modifications were made to provide better energy efficiency over the long-term use of the rooms.
• The overall project duration (20 weeks) was longer to accommodate the customer’s request for building out the new rooms in two phases.
• MTX facilitated the tear down and removal of the older ripening rooms and prepped the existing area of the facility for the new rooms to be constructed.
• MTX’s team regularly worked with the customer to mitigate any impacts to active operations whilst meeting an aggressive construction schedule.
• The new ripening rooms were constructed with both variable frequency drives and partial loading capability to ensure both energy efficient use of the rooms as well as flexibility for changing load requirements.
• The ripening rooms systems were cooled by a centralized glycol package chiller located behind the facility. Given the tight proximity of the facility to surrounding infrastructure a crane was coordinated with the local municipality to locate the chiller.

MTX have recently completed the installation of two random access ripening rooms and a blast chiller for Turners PPL. All three ripening rooms allow access to any individual pallet situated within the room at a particular time. This is due to the varying ripening times of each individual pallet of fruit.

The rooms were three tiers in construction. This allowed three rooms to be positioned in such a way as to not take up large amounts of floor space. All structural steelwork was designed by MTX in-house specialists in conjunction with structural engineers.

The ripening rooms were temperature controlled via existing warehouse coolers working together with electric heater batteries situated in a service void above the rooms. Cool air enters the room via an opposed blade damper when cooling is called for.

The construction of the blast chiller, including all steelwork, was undertaken by MTX. The room was then fitted out with refrigeration equipment by a specialist contractor employed directly by the client.

Both ripening rooms were fitted with automatically operated inverter drives in order to allow variable speed fan control. This has proved to be both cost effective and energy saving with a payback of around 12 months.

MTX was contracted to design and build five (5) forty-two pallet banana ripening rooms. The ripening rooms were cooled with a secondary glycol system which received primary cooling via the buildings ammonia refrigeration system. The project featured over the top running doors which ensured aisle lighting was uninterrupted and doors were more easily serviced from the ceiling of the rooms. All rooms were network with remote access and monitoring by facility maintenance and operators.

Project Details:

• The design of the secondary refrigeration system including a custom pumping skid was carried out by the MTX office.
• An access ladder was installed for technician and maintenance staff along with a continuous railing around the perimeter of the rooms.
• All ripening rooms included the installation of variable frequency drives to control the speed of the pressurization fans based on room and product conditions.
• Ripening rooms were designed with partial loading to allow for flexible load requirements.
• All of the rooms were networked back to an operator’s station which allowed for overall monitoring and control of the ripening systems on site.
• Both the ripening rooms and refrigeration systems were tied into the local network providing service personnel with real-time information in the event of faults or failures on site.

Following a rigorous tender process, MTX were appointed as principle contractor to complete the works, ensuring key commitment to the project programme.

Established in 1963 and formally located in Perry Bar, MWW specialise in the procurement and processing of fresh produce from around the world for sale in the UK and continental Europe. Due to their ever increasing success and ambitious expansion plans, MWW had begun to outgrow their current facility and required additional space to allow for their continued growth. The project was to involve the design and build, fit-out of a new warehouse which had been previously constructed. The new fit out which involved the construction of new office accommodation, insulated food safe white walling creating extensive cold storage, construction, refrigeration, mechanical & electrical works in addition to managing previously appointed contractors working on behalf of the client. A significant part of the project was to remodel the existing warehouse to accommodate a waste transfer and management zone in addition to the delivery of nine state of the art, random access pressurised ripening systems and a further 5 rapid coolers with further plans to expand with the growth of the business.

The project would need to be constructed to the highest standards whilst also ensuring the client’s limited budget was maintained and ensuring that the new facility was constructed in compliance with local planning, building and food standard regulations.

A bespoke building comprising of multi coloured multi textured façades to all elevations encompassing entrance lobby area with access to 1st floor via staircase or platform lift, ground floor lounge and seating area, 2 no staff offices, toilet facilities and a in house café catering to staff and pupils. A 1st floor area state of the art electronic library/study area with 3 staff offices and servers room. Finishes within the building being bright and specifically designed around the brief to instil a sense of place for all users of the facility. The building and sub structure too have been specially designed for this project and take into account the many challenges this site presented.

The piled foundations and beams were designed to also incorporate the ground floor slab and was designed to take the module sections which were delivered to site without floors. The slab was created with pockets and a perimeter shelf to take the steel frame sections and columns.

Once mated to the foundations the building was ready to be fitted out on the ground floor whilst the 1st floor concrete was being poured. This method providing many programme advantages with fit-out works commencing almost immediately after the installation. Internally the ground floor main area being finished with all mechanical and electrical services left on show along with the steel framework of the modules. This creates a modern, industrial look further complemented with additional features such as feature walls, reclaimed brick wall and suspended lighting of various types.

Whilst the entire project was being constructed MTX were working alongside a fire sprinkler contractor appointed directly by the client. The sprinkler contractor was responsible for the extensive network of pipework which served approximately 4000 sprinkler heads. Clearly, this created substantial challenges with regard to co-ordination ensuring continuity of the works. Externally, MTX were responsible for the sub-structure foundations to accommodate the construction of two new 250,000 litre water tanks.

Critical to the clients operation was the waste transfer area which would be the zone for the safe organisation and disposal of waste product including packaging and waste produce. The area was designed to allow product to be transferred from inside to outside hygienically and without corrosion to the surfaces during washing periods.

A key requirement of the brief was to ensure that the new facility was expandable, future proof and energy efficient and within the design there are numerous design considerations allowing for these provisions including the expansion of office space, additional ripening room capacity and additional cold stores.

The entire MTX team are thrilled with the projects conclusion. It was the largest project that MTX had embarked on to date and great credit must go to the team as a whole including the client’s project management team, the MTX project and delivery team and the extended supply chains.

“I found MTX and their team open and very professional during the tender and implementation phase of our project. They had the appropriate expertise in designing, developing and delivering a substantial project and were very organized and methodical in their approach to the works. Whenever unanticipated problems arose, they were good with ideas and resourceful at accessing the right solution. The overall quality of their works has been excellent and I can confirm without hesitation that together we have delivered a state of the art fresh produce production and distribution facility. Our customers and key partners are very impressed with the final result.” 

Parveen Mehta – Operations Director

The new distribution center was 241,000 square feet of refrigerated storage space and 40,000 square feet of office space. MTX was awarded the design and construction of twenty (20) banana ripening rooms through a competitive tendering process. The project was successfully completed in twenty-one (21) weeks of construction on site in Laval.

Project Details:

• The ripening systems were broken between 42 and 21-pallet configurations.
• The refrigeration work was performed by CIMCO Refrigeration with a CO2 primary and secondary glycol system feeding the ripening rooms.
• A bridge was constructed to span between the two banks of ripening rooms to allow for ease of access by maintenance personnel.
• All ripening rooms included the installation of variable frequency drives to control the speed of the pressurization fans based on room and product conditions.
• All of the rooms were networked back to an operators station which allowed for overall monitoring and control of the 20 systems on site.
• The overall site capacity was 31,248 boxes of bananas.

This facility allows Fyffes to ripen an additional 756 tonnes of bananas per cycle. Coupled with the existing single and two tier rooms, the full site capacity has been increased to a total of 2148 tonnes per cycle.

With the increased capacity, the existing chilled water plant had to be reviewed. The outcome was that the existing 400kW Daikin chiller was de-commissioned and two 750kW free-cooling Airedale chillers installed. The free-cooling allows the client to benefit from external ambient conditions. If the ambient air falls below 7°C a valve is opened by-passing the inlet water through a free-cooling coil which is exposed to the ambient air cooling the water before the evaporator. This results in the lower the
ambient conditions, the greater advantage of free-cooling, subsequently reducing the load on the chillers’ compressors. Other energy management systems that have been installed on this project are a chiller sequence control system, refrigeration saving modules and fan inverter drives. These all contribute to the efficient operation of our ripening system, resulting in reduced energy consumption.

The entire design, installation and commissioning, including the mechanical and electrical was managed in house with the project handed over on time and within budget.