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'More control over garlic storage quality'

4 September 2023

In Brunémont, in the Nord department of France, Olivier Drubay specializes in the cultivation of garlic, onions and shallots on loamy to light clay soils in the valley of the river Sensée.

After cultivation, the product is dried, cooled and stored, and a whole range of manual processing takes place with ten permanent and forty temporary employees. Cleaning, sorting, braiding and smoking in special smoking chambers with beech wood is a special process. Finally, the smoked garlic, but also the shallots and onions, are packed for the supermarket. The end result is a unique product in terms of shelf life and taste from the region Drubay is proud of. In the newly built warehouse, onions, shallots and garlic are stored and can be ventilated, dried and cooled.

The storage requirements of onions and garlic are very similar. For both crops it is important that the products dry quickly and are kept at a low relative humidity. This ensures that any fungi and bacteria can spread further. It also keeps the color more beautiful. "We wanted to get that drying under better control," says Olivier Drubay. "For our way of working, it is very important that the tops of the garlic are thoroughly dry, but that they remain strong enough to be able to braid." The garlic is lifted with a top harvester and then left on the field to dry. With the investment in the new storage, this risky field period has been considerably shortened. After loading into boxes, the garlic is placed in front of the drying wall and the drying process is controlled by the Vision Control with the modulating gas heaters and the automatic hatch control. Drubay is enthusiastic about the drying in storage: "With the new storage I have much more control over the quality of the garlic".

The new box storage area is equipped with three independent cells, all of which are equipped with a drying wall with energy-efficient fans. In total, approximately 1.000 tons of product can be stored in 'closed' boxes. These have an extra large pallet opening so that a lot of air can pass through. The mechanical cooling with natural refrigerant is installed in two cells and allows the onions to be stored at 1 °C and the garlic at -3 °C.

Part of the 18 hectares of garlic grown by Drubay is already planted in the winter period and the harvest can therefore take place from the end of June. After harvesting, drying takes place in storage until a relative humidity of around 65% is reached. The boxes are then emptied onto the sorting machine and the garlic is cleaned and sorted according to size. Each garlic bulb goes through the hands of one of the employees to remove all loose skins and foliage and to put the different sizes together. "This process still requires a lot of manual work. During the high season, there are up to fifty employees on the farm. That can hardly be otherwise, because the foliage on the bulb must also remain intact for the next step in the process," says Drubay. The sorted garlic bulbs are then placed in a low box by size.

Then strands of the garlic bulbs are braided by the braiders. This can vary from ten balls in a strand to as many as ninety balls. Sometimes it is necessary to moisten the foliage again before braiding to give it sufficient strength so that it does not break during braiding. The last step in the processing process is that the strands are hung to be smoked in special smoking chambers.

Smoking garlic is an age-old preservation method that originated mainly in France. In the closed smoking room, a fire of oak or beech sawdust smolders, releasing smoke. This is a precise process, because the garlic should not be steamed until done, but it must receive sufficient heat to ensure that it no longer germinates. The temperature in the smoking chambers is therefore accurately measured with the Vision Control climate computer. After being treated in the smoking chamber for at least eight to nine days, the desired shelf life is reached. The garlic also gets a beautiful golden brown color through smoking and a smoky, special taste is created.

 "We combine traditional and new storage techniques at our company," says Drubay proudly. "With the new storage we have taken an extra step in continuing to deliver a unique regional quality product!"

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