Partnership between Canadian and Dutch ripening technology companies

Increased support for North American companies. While the relationship between the two companies may be longstanding, their more formal and recent North American partnership will offer new opportunities to customers on this continent. “We’ve been manufacturing ripening systems for more than 35 years and they make their way around the globe,” says Jacco Smid with VDH Products. Meanwhile, MTX is a turnkey provider of fresh produce facilities and other temperature-controlled environments and is based in Canada. “We’ve been working together with MTX for a long time. Because of the growing demand for our products in North America and MTX’s ripening system expertise, we felt an official partnership was a logical next step,” Smid added. VDH Products supplies the control equipment and other items for the complete ripening process as well as service and support to MTX. MTX on the other hand, works directly with customers based in Canada and the US. “We noticed that a lot of people were struggling to get support for VDH equipment in North America,” says Ethan Strawbridge of MTX Fruit Ripening Systems North America based in Rockwood, Ontario. “We have clients who have equipment made by VDH and they’re looking for solutions to help them move forward or access parts. VDH has had a very strong presence in the fruit ripening and produce control system business for a few decades now and we’ve now ended up on a partnership we could make work.” Direct connectionsFor growers in North America this means there are more direct ways to access VDH products. “There have been hundreds of systems throughout North America that were built on the VDH architecture and a lot of them are having a hard time finding ways to get parts or intimidated about purchasing things from overseas. Although we live in a world market today, a lot of people still struggle to overcome that challenge.” Improving accessibility to VDH systems without having to head overseas means that existing ripening rooms and systems may have an easier, and more economical time, updating those rooms and systems.