Investing in tomorrow with Blue Sky Onions
Blue Sky Onions in eastern Washington features the first fully automated electronic grader from Eqraft on the American West Coast. Next to the Eqrader™ line, they are also the first to adopt the European method of grading and packing, enhancing both flexibility and efficiency.
What started out as a rather simple order for an electronic grader, turned out to be one of Eqraft’s largest collaborations in the last couple of years. Blue Sky Onions took a leap of faith when they decided to skip the half measures and invest in automation across the board. Opting for a new onion grader as well as a newly built packing shed containing several weighing and packing machines, they now are one of Eqraft’s examplary projects on the West Coast. We sat down with Jake Wardenaar of Blue Sky Onions and asked him how and why he made that decision.
A career in agriculture was quite a logical choice for Jake: Blue Sky Onions is a family business, founded in the seventies by his parents. Originating from Whidbey Island in northwestern Washington, they both came from Dutch heritage – hence the last name. They moved to Royal City (WA) over fifty years ago and have been building up a stable business ever since, growing and packing onions and shipping them to clients in the retail grocery and food service industry.
Besides onions, the family business also grows potatoes, apples, cherries, alfalfa, green peas, corn, and wheat. Blue Sky Onions supplies their produce to the Basin Gold Cooperative, a group of growers and shippers who take care of the marketing of the onions. Jake grew up on a farm but gained experience at another company for about eight years after college, before joining his older brother Joel in the family business. ‘I’m responsible for the onions from grading to packing and selling - that also includes making strategic decisions such as investing in new equipment. My brother runs the farm operations of the onions and other crops,’ Jake tells us.
Clear vision
The decision to go for Eqraft’s electronic grader was years in the making, according to Jake. Having a personal connection to the Netherlands, he has been visiting the country for years – both for pleasure and business. Around seven years ago, he received an invitation from Eqraft for the first demonstration of the Eqrader™ optical onion sorting machine at HOZA in the Netherlands. ‘I went and spoke to Eqraft about what I thought had to be done to make the technology work for our US onions as well.’ Jake is referring to the difference in onion size. Onions on the American West Coast are much larger than their European counterparts, requiring machinery and technology to be adapted. In the years after that, he kept following the development of the onion grader. He even visited several reference projects in the Netherlands: at MSP Onions, the world’s largest automated onion processing line, and Go Products, a smaller family business. ‘During those trips, I got a good sense of what the Eqrader could do and how I wished to implement it in my own business,’ he says. ‘When the time came to invest, I already had a clear vision on how we would do things, so the decisions were made fairly fast.’
Against the grain
Besides investing in an optical grader, Blue Sky also decided to build a brand-new shed for their new Eqraft packing line. That’s where the second scoop of this project comes in: besides boasting the first Eqrader installation on this side of the US, they’re also the first North-American factory that adopts the European standard when it comes to packing. This means graded onions go into storage before they’re packed, instead of sending them directly from the grader to the packing line, as is common in the US.
Many US-based factories think it’s best to avoid the extra step of putting produce in storage first, but it’s actually the opposite, says Mike Kooijman, technical sales executive at Eqraft. ‘By putting the onions in bins and leaving them in storage for a little while, they are given time to heal before being packed and transported. We take gentle handling very seriously at every step of the process.’
More importantly, having a storage with already graded onions in different categories benefits efficient packing. ‘Before grading the onions, you don’t know exactly what you’re going to get out of a batch: you might need category A onions but end up with predominantly category B,’ says Mike. ‘Taking fewer onions out of a batch than you anticipated means your packing machine can’t perform at full capacity, slowing the process down.’ And there’s more: ‘By packing a batch of onions you haven’t sold yet, you risk having to pack the batch again because the client prefers a different type of bag.’ In short, having graded onions in storage allows the packing line to use its full capacity and increases flexibility. And that makes a difference on the factory floor, says Jake: ‘We’re really happy with how quickly we are able to react to client orders now.’
No more heavy lifting
After a trip to the Netherlands in the spring of 2022, Jake signed the project in the summer of that same year. Just before Christmas 2023, the new lines were up and running. ‘We had to build the new packing shed, take care of the permitting process, install the new lines, get everything up and running, and learn how to work with the new equipment,’ he remembers about that challenging first year.
Being the first Eqrader installation that processes West Coast onions, the machinery and technology had to be tweaked to fit a larger-sized product. ‘Blue Sky took a leap of faith on us and we’re grateful for that,’ says Mike. After having worked with the new line for over a year, Jake can say with certainty he’s glad he did it. ‘With the Eqrader, we’ve added fifty per cent more capacity compared to the previous situation. We’re very pleased with it, as we can now do a much better job in sorting out onions with skin discoloration and internal rot, and grade them accurately based on sizing.’ His team is also happy with the new setup. ‘Thanks to the level of automation, there are no jobs that require heavy lifting anymore. What’s left is just some light manual work, such as hanging bags onto the Baxmatic® bagging machine. It’s a nice working environment for our crew.’
Jake is glad he ultimately decided to opt for a complete new grading and packing line, investing in a new building as well as several machines that will help him face daily challenges for the years to come. ‘It was a risky endeavor because a large sum of money was involved,’ he admits, ‘but I think these types of long-term investments ultimately pay off.’ Like Eqraft, he believes in looking ahead and securing future-proof equipment for the coming decades. ‘Instead of trying to solve an individual problem we’re facing today, I try to anticipate the problems we will encounter further down the line, investing in comprehensive solutions that will set us up for long-term success.’
