Moses Lake facility
Arctic apples will have a new home for all of their processes, from start to finish, come spring. A new 100,000 sq ft. processing facility is underway in Moses Lake, Washington, close to Okanagan Specialty Fruits’ (OSF) orchards. It creates more end-to-end efficiency, according to Rebecca Catlett, director of marketing and communications with the organization.
“Okanagan Specialty Fruits is a vertically integrated apple company and manages all aspects of Arctic apples, from the orchard to the customer,” she says. “We knew we would build a facility in Washington state, close to our Arctic apple orchards.”
Third Security LLC is OSF’s parent company and acquired 42.5 acres of land for development in Moses Lake which will include the facility. It’s expected to increase OSF’s production capacity by three times when completed in late spring, well ahead of the 2023 harvest season. The centralized facility will initially include receiving, shipping, slicing, processing and packing, while the next phase (summer 2023) will add in pre-grading and sorting lines.
“We are also in the planning phase of building a controlled-atmosphere facility on the campus,” she says.
With more than 1,250 acres of Arctic apples planted in Washington state, it’s an important step for the company to develop the robust facility as many of the trees are hitting peak production maturity levels and yields will rise. There are other apple warehouses in the state, but they don’t include the fresh-slicing capacity required for Artic apple consumer-prepared products. Ready-to-eat food safety certification will be included at the facility.
“The equipment being installed in this facility is very highly automated and will rely heavily on skilled operators,” Catlett says. “This was another reason we chose Moses Lake, as the community has a long history of value-added food processing and has the people needed to operate such a facility successfully.”
It is expected that the new processing building will create up to 60 local jobs and OSF will employ a total of about 90 people this year. These numbers will likely increase over time as production grows and evolves.