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Results at a Glance

• 80m clear-span design, the largest of its kind at the time of construction

• Throughput doubled to around 400 tonnes of apples and pears per week

• Multiple coolstore zones integrated for seamless cold chain flow

• Roof engineered for 650kW to 1,000kW of solar generation

• 100% rainfall harvest capacity built into the design
  

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Client Overview

The Napoleone family has grown apples and pears in the Yarra Valley since 1948, trading as Red Rich Fruits. Today the operation spans more than 300 hectares of orchards across Wandin North, Wandin East, Coldstream, Seville and Hoddles Creek, producing over 10 million kilos of apples, 2 million kilos of pears and 500,000 kilos of stonefruit each year. The family has also diversified into wine, beer and cider through Punt Road Wines and the Napoleone Brewery and Ciderhouse.

The business had outgrown the packing centre on its Yarra Valley property. The brief for the new facility was specific: the largest possible clear span, with no internal columns or pinch points to interrupt forklifts, trucks, processing lines, equipment or people, with cold chain management, grading technology and renewable energy infrastructure all built into the design.

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Key Outcomes

Red Rich Fruits now packs around 400 tonnes of apples and pears per week, double its previous throughput, from a facility designed around its operational flow rather than the limits of its previous building. Multiple coolstore zones support a clean flow from receival through holding to packing and dispatch, with fewer touches and less warm exposure. Optical and imaging systems check fruit internally before sorting apples and pears into grades, and director Michael Napoleone has credited the new facility with significantly improving grading and cold storage control systems to maintain product quality and longevity.

The 80-metre clear span with no internal columns is the largest of its kind, providing almost 2,200m² of unimpeded floorspace. Clear-span can sound like a technical specification, but in practice, it is a workflow tool. The design gave Red Rich the room to install updated conveyor, grading and packing systems and expanded cool room storage without the layout constraints of internal columns.

Energy and water were core parts of the brief. The facility uses a passive box approach to reduce refrigeration loads, with the roof designed to carry between 650kW and 1,000kW of solar, depending on the final panel layout. Rainwater capture was built into the design for use elsewhere on site.