Osmoflo has been awarded the contract for the delivery of a permanent Ultra-Filtration water treatment plant for Costa Group, in Guyra NSW.
Costa Group supply premium glasshouse tomatoes from this site on the New England tablelands, near Armidale in NSW, in the snacking, specialty, cocktail and large truss segments, via all major and independent supermarkets and green grocers. Guyra glasshouses have 302,400 square metres (30.22ha) of growing area (approximately 12 AFL football fields) and at peak production hold more than one million plants.
Several years ago, Osmoflo supplied a brackish water reverse osmosis (RO) plant to provide better quality, lower salinity water to assist with production and to enable the facility to become more water efficient overall. In order to protect the RO membranes from fouling, suspended solids must be removed, and a rental Ultrafiltration system was supplied, initially to demonstrate the advantages of enhanced pre-treatment. The rental water treatment plant has performed well demonstrating a significant reduction in fouling and load on the downstream RO system. Based on this, Costa Group requested a permanent solution fully capable of meeting the downstream RO feed requirements.
The new supply contract involves the delivery of a skid mounted 1,600 kLD Ultra Filtration water treatment plant complete with chemical dosing, and backwash system. This unit will replace the existing Osmoflo rental equipment on site. Osmoflo’s Chief Operating Officer, Carmine Ciccocioppo states “Osmoflo are very pleased to be assisting one of our local Aussie food growers with their climate change initiatives and environmental innovations with regards to their on-site water needs.”
Osmoflo’s remote monitoring capabilities and on-site services will also be provided to assist in ongoing optimisation and to increase reliability and availably of the water treatment plant.
“Reverse osmosis is a key way in which Costa is able to improve the sustainability of our water use and ensure we can efficiently produce tomatoes year-round. Osmoflo has provided us with an RO solution that allows us to meet our water use objectives in both and economically and environmentally responsible way. We look forward to continuing to work closely with them over the years ahead,” said Peter Davis, State Manager, Costa Tomato Category.
