At Cohn Farms there is an impressive processing and packing plant working with local growers as part of The Honest Potato group of companies. Innovations include a waterless potato peeler and a system collecting all organic waste which is destined for the biodigester for fertilizer and energy creation.
To learn more about the work we do in the agricultural sector click here.
Full video transcript:
This is a three generation company. My dad started it in 1967. I joined in myself with my brother in 1972 and now my two sons and my nephew are going to be following in our footsteps. We want our customers know where all their food products are coming from. The Downey family approached us because they are packers of retail products – number one products. And not everything that they grow is good enough to make a number one pack. We’ve been asked to process that product and turn it into a value added product and it becomes number one quality again. So we’re able to achieve using everything that they grow. We process everything to the highest food safety levels. We are fully SQF certified. Our biggest product is peeled potatoes which go to all the food service companies and Health Care Units in Ontario, along with other side items like Parisienne potatoes, peeled onions, peeled carrots and assorted vegetables. Our volume is tremendous. We have two state of the art lines set up right now. We’re running approximately 120 to 180 thousand pounds a week now, and we’re not even at half capacity yet. One of the main benefits of using processed potatoes is the huge labour savings for our customers. They’re getting top quality potatoes, and they do not have to spend the time peeling them or getting rid of any waste products. The loop is closed by starting with The Honest Potato Company growers and their regenerative growing standards. All of their products get either packed or whatever is not good enough to pack there comes to our facility for processing. After we process it, whatever is not used gets shipped directly to a bio-digester where hydroelectricity is created along with fertilizer which goes back on our lands. Nothing gets wasted. Everything gets used. One thing we’ve done to reduce our water use is we have bought waterless peelers and we actually have the first ones in Canada. And that is significantly reduced our water usage. We are reducing our carbon footprint by using strictly local potatoes all year round. It’s very exciting to think about the future moving forward with the younger generation taking over and all the enhancements and improvements that they can make to what we’re currently doing. We are a totally closed loop from field to fork. We are proud partners of The Honest Potato Company and we’re looking forward to changing the world one potato at a time.