The Little Potato Company had his automated facility designed by Deprez

EDMONTON (Canada)  - The part ‘little’ in the name of ‘The Little Potato Company’ doesn’t cover the inventive way to storage, arrange and package potatoes. The new site  in Edmonton is built on automation, in every possible movement.

In a Factory of the Future, time and efficiency are key. If there is automatization, possibility of human mistakes are reduced. So starts the process by achieving complete automatization with reception, cleaning, optical sorting and grading of unwashed potatoes. After that, different grades are filled in wooden bins and stored in cool rooms, empty bins are buffered without any forklift movement. Bins from the cool rooms are automatically tipped into wet hoppers, that are feeding the wash lines.

At the end of the wash lines, the potatoes will be optically graded into size and quality grades.  Now the potatoes are filled in plastic bins and immediately stored in a fully automatic “Work In Progress” store. In these steps as well, not any forklift truck is needed. From the Work In Progress store, bins will be feeding extra grading and blending lines. Once the potatoes will be ready to be packed, the packing lines will be optimally fed by the Deprez Orbiters, which are mobile fully automatic box tippers.

Our aim, to create a completely automated solution, would enable the factory of the future to provide The Little Potato Company with 7 important benefits: First, it would help limit manual labor and thus avoid possible human error. Second element: automation creates the possibility to have complete traceability. As third fact, it allows detailed and correct control of stock. Both washed and unwashed. In the meanwhile is the system able to deliver perfect dosage to each machine according to its capacity. And it allows us to guarantee minimal down time of machines or lines while changing products. There would be complete control over every movement, which means no damage and optimal product handling. And, it maximizes flexibility to respond to every client’s need within a minimal timeframe.

Deprez is a Belgium manufacturer with almost 40 years experience in automated bulk and bin projects for potatoes, onions, seeds and other dry products, installed at growing companies worldwide. This successful collaboration with Haith is the result of the innovative way of automatization, is a totally new way of storage and packing in agriculture.

Deprez was selected to be ‘Enterprise of the Year 2022’ in Belgium. Come to our booth #401 at Potato Expo 2025 (Van Doren Sales) and learn about the advanced automation systems that are optimizing packhouse logistics and operations! 

Check here the testimonial on our Linkedin-page.