BEARINGS
BSC is helping Hawkes Farm scrub up nicely Industrial products supplier BSC helped fresh vegetable producers, Hawkes Farm, solve a potentially devastating bearing failure and save a profitable crop. Food & Beverage Industry News reports.
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or the Hawkes family, vegetables aren’t small potatoes. In fact, potatoes play a pivotal role in their Victorian farm and produce business located in Boneo on the picturesque Mornington Peninsula. “Our business comprises three parts. We have the farm itself where we grow a variety of vegetables and sell wholesale to grocers and restaurants,” said co-owner Georgie Hawkes. “Then we have our farmgate, including our online store, which is a direct-to-public retail shopfront and then we have what we call ‘Hawkes Produce’, which is the processing side of the business. “We have a facility where we grade, wash and package up produce ready for market, the majority of which is potatoes. While some of this produce is our own, we also process potatoes for other growers who don’t
have these facilities.” It’s a diverse business model that has proven effective for the farming family. According to Hawkes, the farm’s success and growth can be attributed to a combination of high yield farming practice and vertical business integration, the Hawkes’ grow, pack, and market their own product. “My husband Richard is a six-generation vegetable farmer. His dad originally bought the farm here in the 1970s, but he comes from a long line of veggie growers,” said Hawkes. “He understands what is required to ensure the soil conditions are optimal, such as crop rotation for high yields.” Richard began growing potatoes in the early 2000s, originally trialling some on a small patch of the family farmland. Now, potatoes make up their largest line. “This is followed by Dutch carrots,
When Hawkes Farm owners discovered the bearings on a new piece of machinery didn’t work they called BSC.
40 Food&Beverage Industry News | December 2021 | www.foodmag.com.au
and we also grow spring onions, radishes, kale and parsley,” Hawkes continued. “We recently had a contract for washing a large quantity of carrots, so we upgraded our equipment.” The upgrade involved the purchase of new washer machines from overseas. Although state-of-the-art, when the team at Hawkes assembled the machines at their facility, the bearings did not appear to fit correctly. “It wasn’t quite right, so Richard contacted BSC, which is our go-to service provider, urgently about the parts needed,” said Hawkes. “I don’t know the full details of the exchange, but I understand that the guys from BSC went above and beyond to help us out.” Leon Stefanec, BSC’s national business development manager for food and beverage, was the one who took Richard’s call.
“Richard called our after-hours service line on a Saturday afternoon with an urgent enquiry about bearings. The new processing equipment he’d purchased from overseas had issues with the bearings – perhaps they didn’t fit correctly, and were of inferior quality,” said Stefanec. “The washer was critical to Hawkes Vegetables being able to fulfill a large carrot washing contract they had. Richard was mindful of the importance of the contract. They had a strict timeline to adhere to and needed to process a large batch of carrots in a very short timeframe, otherwise the vegetables would spoil.” As the Hawkes’ family needed a large quantity of high-quality bearings, and quickly, Stefanec immediately contacted NSK. “They were up against it, and it was unusual for us to receive an order for such a high quantity of bearings and housings out of business hours, so
