RIDGE SPRING — Titan Farms has more than 600 employees, and South Carolina's peach-producing pioneer drew plenty of extra foot traffic Thursday morning, celebrating several months of improvements and several tons of new machinery.
Chalmers Carr, the business' president and CEO, helped lead tours of the facility, which has had about $6.5 million in additions since the end of the 2014 peach season.
"Today, we're packing about 14 tractor-trailer loads of peaches, but in our big days, in the middle of July, we'll pack anywhere from 25 to 30 tractor-trailer loads per day," Carr said, while showing some of the operation's new machinery, designed to help speed produce - mostly peaches - on its way to destinations around America and beyond, keeping various buyers' preferences in mind along the way.
The operation also produces bell peppers and broccoli. In terms of peaches, it produces more than the entire state of Georgia, some speakers noted.
"This is the fulfillment of a large investment," added S.C. Rep. Jeff Duncan, whose district includes Saluda County and much of the Titan Farms acreage, "but it's also a fulfillment of all those things that Titan stands for, with quality and on-time delivery and everything that makes a business perform very, very well."
He added, "I toured the BMW plant up in Spartanburg County. This is like the BMW plant for peaches. It's ... automation at its finest, and it's the future of agriculture."
The guest list for Thursday's event numbered about 200, and at least 150 people showed up for the ribbon-cutting, tour and catered lunch. Among the more prominent guests was Hamish Kennedy, founder and managing director of Compac, a New Zealand firm that helped lead the way in Titan Farms' expansion.
Carr was "one of the most involved customers," Kennedy said. "The planning was over about three years, and we made quite a few changes ... We started with Revision A, B, C ... went right though the alphabet, back around again, through the alphabet again ... In the end, I think we finished up with about 56 different revisions."
The goal, as stated in a Compac press release, included improving "fruit handling and sorting as well as traceability and food safety capabilities for the company that is now packing and shipping nearly 3 million boxes of peaches, broccoli and bell peppers annually." The result, Kennedy said, was "really a great design."