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Xingtai, Hebei
One plant, one cold chain
Fruit comes in from the orchards and leaves as frozen or aseptic ingredient from the same site. Photos below are of our plant and equipment; line drawings are our own process layouts.
Inside the plant
Four stages, one building
Fruit enters at the dock and leaves as a sealed aseptic pack or a frozen block. These are the four stages it passes through, and what is recorded at each one.
01Intake and preparation
Each orchard lot is weighed at the gate, checked for ripeness, defects and foreign matter, and tagged with its origin and harvest date. It is then washed and sanitised, destemmed, and peeled or cored where the fruit needs it. Fruit that is not going straight to the line is blast frozen within hours.
Recorded: orchard, harvest date, intake weight, temperature
02Cold pulping
A turbine cold pulper breaks the fruit at low temperature and separates skins, seeds and stones without cooking the flavour out of it. A stone washer handles peach and apricot; berries go straight through. Enzymes are inactivated in a tubular unit, a fine pulper takes the purée down to the mesh the product needs, and a deaerator pulls dissolved air out so the colour holds.
Recorded: mesh, temperature, yield, batch number
03Cooking and sterilising
Preparations with pieces are cooked under vacuum, at a lower temperature than open cooking, so the pieces stay whole and the colour stays bright. Everything then passes through tube-in-tube sterilisation with the hold time set per recipe, is cooled in the same unit, and goes through metal detection and magnetic separation before it reaches the filler.
Recorded: cooking profile, hold time and temperature, CIP cycle
04Filling, storage and despatch
Sterile product is filled into aseptic bag-in-box or drums in a sterile zone, or frozen in trays and blocks where the customer wants frozen. Finished stock sits in our own multi-temperature store — −45 °C blast, −18 °C frozen, 4 °C chilled and 15 °C ambient — until it is loaded into a reefer or a dry container.
Recorded: fill weight, pack, pallet, store zone, release COA
The line
An Italian-built purée and aseptic line
One continuous line from washing to sterile filling. Below is the machine set as it is installed, and what each unit is there to do.
| Unit | What it is there to do |
|---|---|
| Turbine cold pulper | Breaks the fruit at low temperature and separates skin and seed without heating the pulp |
| Turbine stone washer | Removes stones from peach, apricot and cherry ahead of pulping |
| Turbine fine pulper | Takes the purée down to the mesh the finished product needs |
| Ice breaker | Breaks frozen blocks so frozen stock can be run all year, not only in season |
| Thawing & pre-cook tank | Brings frozen fruit up to working temperature under control |
| Tubular enzyme inactivation | Stops enzymatic browning and flavour loss in seconds, not minutes |
| Vacuum cooking tank | Cooks preparations under vacuum at lower temperature, so fruit pieces stay whole |
| Buffer tank | Holds cooked product at temperature so filling runs without stopping the cook |
| Deaerator | Pulls dissolved air out so colour holds and the pack does not foam on filling |
| Piston pump | Moves product containing whole pieces without shearing them |
| Tubular steriliser | Tube-in-tube heating and cooling, hold time set per recipe and logged per batch |
| Metal detection & magnetic separation | Rejects metal before the filler, with automatic reject and record |
| Twin-head aseptic filler | Fills sterile bag-in-box inside a sterile zone; two heads for continuous running |
| Aseptic drum filling platform | Fills 200 kg drums into sterile liners for high-volume lines |
| Manual drum filling platform | Small runs, first batches and trial quantities |
| CIP station | Cleans and sanitises the whole line between recipes; every cycle logged |
Line assignments and exact model numbers are confirmed during supplier qualification. Process drawings for both lines are below.
Process
The four routes in full
The same four stages, written out unit by unit. Which route a lot takes depends on the fruit and on the product it is going into.
Peach, apricot, apple, pear
Fresh stone fruit
Wash & sanitise → Turbine cold pulper / stone washer → Tubular enzyme inactivation → Turbine fine pulper → Deaerator → Piston pump → Tubular steriliser → Metal detection & magnetic separation → Aseptic bag-in-box / drum, or frozen in trays
Strawberry, raspberry, blueberry
Fresh berries
Wash & sanitise → Turbine cold pulper → Tubular enzyme inactivation → Turbine fine pulper → Deaerator → Piston pump → Tubular steriliser → Metal detection & magnetic separation → Aseptic bag-in-box / drum, or frozen in trays
From our own frozen stock, all year
Frozen berries
Ice breaker → Thawing & pre-cook tank → Turbine cold pulper / stone washer → Tubular enzyme inactivation → Turbine fine pulper → Deaerator → Piston pump → Tubular steriliser → Metal detection → Aseptic bag-in-box / drum, or frozen in trays
Fruit pieces blended into a purée base
Preparations with pieces
Vacuum cooking tank → Buffer tank → Deaerator → Piston pump → Tubular steriliser → Metal detection & magnetic separation → Aseptic bag-in-box / drum, or frozen in trays
Line drawings for both lines are further down this page. Equipment list and line assignments are confirmed during supplier qualification.
Our people
The people behind the product
Around 200 people work on this site, including more than 30 engineers and technologists. These are the jobs your product passes through before it reaches a container.
Photographs are of our own site and our own staff. We will add names and roles here once the team page is finished.
The site
Facilities
Figures are as stated by the plant and rounded; exact capacities and line assignments are confirmed during supplier qualification.
Line layouts
How the lines are laid out
Our own process drawings for the puree line and the fruit-preparation line, and the layout rendering used for plant planning.
Cold chain
Frozen within hours, held until it ships
Fruit is frozen within hours of intake and stays in our own multi-temperature store until it is pulped, cooked or loaded. Aseptic packs leave the cold chain only after filling, which is why they can travel and store at ambient.
Traceability
Back to the orchard lot
Every pack carries its batch number back through filling, cooking and pulping to the orchard lot and harvest date it came from. Reefer or dry container, the record travels with it.
Coming in 2026
HPP juice line
A high-pressure-processed (HPP) fruit and vegetable juice line is scheduled to start in 2026 on the same site. Early projects are welcome.
Factory visits
Audit the plant
Customers are welcome at the site. If an audit or visit is part of your supplier qualification, tell us early and we arrange it.