In 2009, Algoma Orchards opened a 165,000-square foot production facility in Ontario that packages annually over 36 million kilograms of apples for wholesale, presses nearly 4 million litres of juice, produces a variety of baked goods and gourmet foods for up to 90,000 visitors per year at its retail store.
The new facility was built to be self-reliant for its water needs with onsite potable water treatment for the bakery and visitors, plus state-of-the-art rainwater harvesting and membrane bioreactor (MBR) treatment for the reuse of process greywater.
Not long after opening, the facility began experiencing frequent shutdowns in its water supply caused by alarms from the conventional “light-in-a-pipe” UV disinfection systems that were experiencing biofouling of the quartz sleeves and sensor malfunctions.
After years of struggling with poor performance, Algoma Orchards started by replacing the conventional UV system for potable water disinfection with two new Upstream NC 10-75 units. The benefits were realized immediately in the bakery and retail store, as the systems put an end to the inconvenience of water shutdowns for patrons.
“We were constantly shutting down and manually cleaning our previous UV systems. At one point, we were cleaning the systems daily with each one taking about an hour to disassemble, clean and reassemble. Now, the UV Pure systems have been operating for about a year and we haven’t had to perform any manual cleanings. The self-cleaning mechanism is doing its job to keep the quartz sleeves clean, avoid alarms and prevent shutdowns.”
~ Ken Ferguson, Operations Manager at Algoma Orchards
The reliability and low maintenance of the UV Pure systems with Crossfire Technology prompted replacement of the other conventional UV system several months later with an Upstream NC 15-75 for the facility’s rainwater harvesting and MBR system that recycles treated process water from the apple flume, apple washing, bottle washing, pressing and filling equipment.