California-based Mission Produce today has announced construction has been completed on its latest Ripe Center in Calgary, which will  service customers throughout Western Canada. 

The avocado company has operated a distribution center in Toronto since 2010, and says new addition allows the company to service the Western half of the country from a center designed to deliver to customers from Winnipeg to Vancouver.

According to senior operations director Ben Barnard, the Ripe Center implements new technology designed specifically for avocados.

“It is a 40,000 square-foot, purpose-built facility that has 4 ripe rooms with a total capacity to ripen 96 pallets. We developed the Calgary Ripe Center with our internal engineering team," he said.

"It uses the latest in avocado ripening technology that is unique to Mission Produce, including advance high-efficiency refrigeration, lighting and control systems to minimize our energy usage. It was designed and built to meet or exceed all food safety requirements."

Vice president of sales and marketing Brent Scattini said opening the Calgary Ripe Center was a logical step in further serving the Canadian market.

“The Calgary facility is a natural counterpart to our Toronto facility, and gives us the ability to service customers more rapidly," he said.

"By having a depot in Calgary, we can relieve some of the burden on the Toronto Ripe Center. It also allows us more ripe capacity while developing faster deliveries of both hard and ripe fruit for customers in the West. It gives us another hub and further extends our coverage of North America."

President and CEO Steve Barnard said Canada was a "very important" market for Mission, and the new ripe center expanded the company's capacity and ability to distribute to our customer base in a timely manner.

"This is the third Ripe Center we’ve opened this year--after opening Centers in Europe and China. We currently operate 11 Mission-owned centers around the world, and we plan to continue to grow globally," he said.

Mission Produce operates packing facilities in California, Mexico, Peru and Chile.

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