Columbia Marketing International Announces Expansion Project
May 15, 2013 CMI, one of Washington State’s largest grower/shippers of premium quality conventional and organic apples, pears, and cherries, announces that one of their owners and growers, McDougall and Sons, has broken ground on a new state-of-the-art facility.
CMI’s expansion project will be done in two phases and is projected to be open for business starting on Sept. 1. The first phase will be comprised of 45,000 bins of CA (controlled atmosphere) storage for harvested fruit, which equates to approximately 900,000 boxes of packed fruit, an 11-dock shipping area with setup space for 17 truckloads, and a racked storage room with capacity for more than 80,000 boxes of packed fruit.
The second phase of the expansion project is scheduled to be operational in May 2014. In this phase a state-of-the-art packing line will be opened, combined with an additional 8,400 pallets of racked storage for packed fruit, and an additional four loading docks. McDougall and Son’s packing line capacity will double in this phase, in comparison to the current Olds Station warehouse. This new facility will offer the flexibility to fill multiple packaging types quickly and with quality care every step of the way. The size of the shipping area will allow for consolidation of multiple shipments, so trucks can make fewer stops and help get fruit on the shelves as quickly as possible while maintaining the cold chain.
“Our new facility has the production capacity to meet our customers’ needs. It incorporates the best fruit handling and sorting technology available and the shipping and setup area is large enough to consolidate each load for one easy pickup,” says Bryon McDougall, director of operations for McDougall and Sons.
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