El Rosario, Sinaloa, Mexico – Empaque Don Jorge I (EDJI) opened this past weekend, ready for the norther regions. EDJI is the hometown packhouse of El Grupo Crespo, Latin America’s largest hydro-thermal packhouse and the home to El Grupo Crespo’s two brands, Crespo Organic & RCF.
Originally built by Roberto Crespo Fitch in the early 1970’s, revamped and modernized in 2016 by Roberto’s children Malu, Roberto, Jorge, and Jose Angel; who today run the family agricultural business alongside the family matriarch, Maluz Duran Valdez (El Grupo Crespo).
The packhouse’ 100,000 SF floor space was rearranged with the revamp, and now includes an additional packing line, bringing the total to 7 lines, packing over 14 different labels for growers across Mexico and for some of the largest conventional US mango importers. There is one dedicated full-time packing line for the Crespo Organic brand and a sperate section dedicated solely to packing non-treated Canadian exports. An additional hydro-thermal tank was added during the upgrade, bringing the total to 11 stainless steel tanks, allowing over 64,000 KG of fresh mangoes to be USDA hot water treated simultaneously.
Prior to last season’s start, new state-of-the-art cooling equipment replaced the total cold storage volume greatly enhanced and enlarged, accommodating an extra 4 truckloads in pre- and post- cooling facilities.
All of the new high-tech, efficient, and worker-friendly stainless-steel machines – washers, sorters, polishers, conveyers, and packing lines are splayed out across the vast space, ready for the seasons upcoming action. EDJI aims to process at full capacity with 14 truckloads/day by the first week of June.
The entire mango packing process is extremely complex, it all happens in 72 hours, with over 18 hours allocated to post-pack cooling. EDJI is one of today’s most efficient and quality-driven packhouses packing for North America and it’s also now….OPEN for business. (All photos and videos are pre-modernizations and upgrades; the new photography and videography projects were interrupted by COVID-19 and are currently scheduled for production this spring and summer.)
The current organic crop report for the northern regions is now out and up on Under The Mango Tree and despite many complexities, the prediction is for ample fruit for Crespo Organic Summer Mango Mania which runs June & July and into August. The northern regions are affected by the same drought as the southern region. Increased plantings mean more fruit despise lesser yields from the drought. But make no mistake a lot of SMALL fruit is coming.
