Since acquiring the Darwin Colombia farm in 2014, Darwin Perennials has made several changes. They are investing in new facilities to ensure they can supply a robust, clean stock program consistently for healthy cuttings and AutoStix inputs.
In addition, they are investing in their people, too. They have created a new position at Darwin Colombia for an expert with decades of experience in the industry: Corné Brooijmans is the new operations manager for Darwin Colombia.
New cold room – Packing, shelving and AutoStix
Darwin Colombia’s new cold room provides the ability to properly handle and maintain exact temperature-controlled maintenance of cuttings post-harvest, during packing and prior to shipment to customers’ doors.
For cold chain accurate packing (above), cuttings are transported to the cold room to start cooling within 15 minutes or less of harvest. Each bag is individually scanned upon receipt in the cold room and allocated to a designated space where it will be carefully monitored until shipment.
The team in Colombia packs each customer box (above) by scanning the bags destined for each account and doing a second check with the pack-list box to ensure accuracy. They also prepare the AutoStix for customers in the cold room to ensure the highest possible quality.
New construction
Darwin Colombia has room to grow. The company just constructed a new elite stock block that is housing the material they use to fill their production greenhouses with clean/pathogen-free product. They also have an additional hectare of newly constructed, state-of-the-art production greenhouses with ideal conditions for growing perennials.
For more information:
Darwin Perennials
622 Town Road
West Chicago, Illinois 60185-2698
630 231-3600
darwinperennials.com