10 years of Onion Tech Alliance: three companies, one vision for agribusinesses

Ten years ago, three Dutch agri businesses started a strategic partnership. Each of them brought their own expertise: Eqraft develops smart onion processing machines, Modesta realises clean factories and Symach takes care of palletisation. Together, they provide factories around the world with an integrated approach, offering efficiency, quality, and peace of mind.

Lately, it's been a fruitful period for the Onion Tech Alliance. Over the past three years, the OTA partners delivered several turn-key projects, including JC Watson, Onions 52, Blue Sky Onions and Big O Farms, with a total processing capacity of 600 tonnes per hour. Another 300 tonnes per hour of processing capacity will be delivered over the next two years. What’s more, this year also marks the 10th anniversary of the OTA partnership. Enough reasons to take a closer look at the fruitful partnership of Eqraft, Modesta and Symach.

A perfect alliance

Agro factories are more than the sum of their parts: thanks to increasingly smart technology, they’re getting more and more complex. To keep them running smoothly, an overarching vision is crucial. Consequently, installing a new processing line and all related machinery is a complicated and stressful ordeal for an onion-processing company: downtime must be avoided at all costs and plant managers have better things to do than supervise the installation. That’s exactly why the Onion Tech Alliance was born a decade ago.

It all started when Eqraft and Modesta started running into each other at different projects, working together on a new processing line for the likes of Wiskerke Onions in Zeeland. Soon the companies realised that they complemented each other and that their collaboration offered an added value for their clients. Eqraft develops sorting, weighing and packing solutions, while Modesta is a specialist in dust extraction and waste handling, ensuring a clean working environment, contributing to a cleaner product with a higher market value, and allowing the machinery in the plant to perform better. When the companies saw their mutual collaboration had a direct, positive impact on their projects, they decided to start the Onion Tech Alliance. Soon after, Symach joined the partnership, providing customised solutions for palletising different types of packaging. Their palletisers, wrappers, and corner setters ensure a stable and neatly stacked load.

With Symach, the partnership was truly complete. "As OTA members, we take on the responsibility for the total performance, management and service of our projects together," says Lennard de Ridder, sales & marketing leader at Symach. "Instead of focusing on delivering individual products, the OTA partners are focused on the total solution. That mentality is a major added value for every agri-factory: they benefit from the fact that all involved parties communicate with each other and are aligned."

Added value

Over the years, OTA has gained name recognition both nationally and internationally. This began with various projects for Dutch agri businesses, such as HOZA and Dacomex. A major project close to home was MSP Onions, a Dutch factory that features one of the world's largest automated onion processing lines. The OTA members also completed projects beyond national borders, including in France and North America. Here, the efficient cooperation of the three parties was streamlined even more: when collaborating with various suppliers far away, good communication is crucial. OTA coordinated the entire process to ensure suppliers worked seamlessly together. They made sure machines fit perfectly within the available space, managed the assembly and installation sequence, verified compatibility between different suppliers' equipment, and integrated IT systems so all machines could communicate effectively with each other.

Reliable foundation

In recent years, OTA has grown, explains Wyboud Kloppenburg, director of Modesta: "Together with the other members, we are increasingly committed to one externally coordinated delivery. We structurally organise meetings to make sure we’re all attuned to each other. This ensures that projects run smoothly." Thanks to this strategy, the OTA members provide a stable, reliable foundation for their clients, enabling them to deliver successful projects. The machines, software, production and planning of the OTA members have also been increasingly optimised and aligned over recent years. "In the past 10 years, we have seen many machine builders come and go. In the meantime, we as OTA members have invested in improving our product portfolios while simultaneously strengthening our collaboration," says Rutger Keurhorst, CCO at Eqraft.

What is the next step for the Onion Tech Alliance? The companies' expertise is not limited to the onion market. Interest from potato businesses in the OTA members’ solutions and integrated approach is growing, so tapping into this new market is a logical next step. Of course, entering this new market will require adapting their current solutions, but the solid foundation built over the past decade positions OTA well for success. Their achievements demonstrate that the agricultural sector's future lies not in individual machine enhancements, but in comprehensive integrated systems that deliver guaranteed quality and maximum efficiency.

www.oniontechalliance.nl
www.eqraft.com
www.modestafilters.nl
www.symach.nl