Hofmans Nursery

Hofmans Nursery – Golden Mile Nashi Orchard

The Hofmans Family has been involved in the Horticulture industry since the late 1950’s and Martin set up Hofmans Nursery in Kaipaki road 26 years ago, originally growing mainly carrots alongside a nursery which still exists today that has become specialised in hedging.

The carrots went a long time ago, apart from the big carrot which lets you know you have arrived at the Hofmans gate in Cambridge. They’ve been replaced by the Golden Mile Nashi Orchard that has grown to become one of the biggest suppliers of nashi in the New Zealand market.

Marty is committed to providing best quality nashi and the delicate fruits demand for high humidity conditions and ways to increase tree to delivery yield had been an issue until discovering EcoChill. With the added benefit of lowering the orchards environmental impact the Hofman’s have partnered with EcoChill for over 10 years to meet growing nashi demand and the business need for high performing systems.

The Solution

In 2009 Marty installed the country’s first EcoChill secondary system, utilising refrigerants that have little to no GWP (Global Warming Potential). With business expansion, the site has gone on to invest in INSERT HERE.

A water/glycol solution is pumped around the cool store at a constant temperature and pressure. This solution is non-toxic, non-flammable and does not ice-up on the evaporators, meaning zero defrosts. The Glycol is chilled by a primary system using Propylene as the refrigerant.

Only 45kg’s of Propylene is needed to chill this entire cool store.

Results

Increased system performance and control over humidity have given Hofman’s less product shrinkage, with better quality fruit and higher delivery yields.
The system has also meant being able to deliver on environmental impact targets as it doesn’t use the synthetic F gas refrigerants that are currently being phased down globally. A reduction in operating expenses from both refrigerant costs and energy efficiencies gained with the new system has been tangible, despite capacity increases, and has had the added benefit of future-proofing refrigerant supply as traditional refrigerant such as R22 have been phased out.

Hofmans have seen:

• Reduction in operating costs.
• Increased control over system humidity resulting in longer product life.
• Zero chance of product contamination if there ever was a refrigerant leak.
• Zero system defrosts (no build up of ice) providing a constant temperature for the product with no drying of the product during defrost cycles.