Why DiMare Fresh chose Catalytic

Providing the equipment to ripen fresh produce is more than just a business to Catalytic Generators – it’s serving the public by providing them with ripe, ready to eat produce. “We want every shopper to be able to walk into their local grocer, need tropical fruit or tomatoes for that night’s recipe, or tomorrow’s breakfast, find them, and purchase them,” stated Greg Akins, President & CEO of Catalytic Generators.

The DiMare Company has helped to supply North America with ready to eat produce by using Catalytic Generators’ ethylene generators and Ethy-Gen® II Ripening Concentrate for the ripening of tomatoes, bananas, and avocados for over 35 years. The DiMare Company is a 93-year-old vertically integrated produce company three generations deep that grows, packs, repacks, and distributes a variety of produce items with growing operations in California and Florida. The DiMare Fresh side of the company is a nationwide network of repack/distribution facilities located in California, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Texas. At their farm affiliated packing operations, DiMare solely ripens tomatoes. At repacking operations, the company primarily ripens bananas.

“For as long as I can remember, DiMare has trusted Catalytic Generators for its ripening services. We know we can rely on their ethylene generators for consistency, functionality, and safety, as well as their reliable service,” stated Tony DiMare, Vice President of DiMare Companies.

DiMare uses both the Easy-Ripe® and Centralized Ripening System® (CRS) ethylene generators across their facilities. The Easy-Ripe® ethylene generator is a portable solution that can be moved around the facility to a room ready for ripening. Simply pour in a litre bottle of Ethy-Gen® II Ripening Concentrate and ethylene production begins. The Centralized Ripening System® produces continuous, consistent ethylene production for superior ripening and degreening in the form of a wall-mounted, narrow generator. Rather than transmit pressurized ethylene by pipe into each individual room, the system makes ethylene right inside the ripening room. Each CRS generator is connected to a pumping station of Ethy-Gen® II and output levels can be easily controlled. DiMare converted older ripening room facilities in Florida and California to the CRS due to the system streamlines and simplified ripening operation which makes for a much easier application.

All generators from the company have similar benefits. An adjustable ethylene output produces consistent, non-pressurized and safe ethylene levels for uniform ripening and degreening, and they can adapt to any ethylene PPM requirement or room size. With the specially formulated liquid Ethy-Gen® II, the generators easily make only as much ethylene as needed for a target room, eliminating the need to store large quantities of compressed gas on site.

“Most of our repacking facilities are newer facilities, so we installed all CRS type systems in these operations when they were built for simplicity and because the CRS system is the latest state-of-the-art technology for ripening produce,” stated DiMare.

Catalytic Generators supplies safe, innovative ripening products to the fresh produce industry that can transform entire ripening operations. Ethylene generators from the company are the only ones to be certified by both UL® and TÜV and Ethy-Gen® II Ripening Concentrate is the only ripening fluid to pass the stringent requirements of US-EPA and UK-CRD. “We believe our customers, like DiMare, simply want the best produce to offer their consumers. By improving their ripening operations with our technology, that’s exactly what they’re getting. Our focus is to simplify ethylene application so that companies like DiMare, who has so many demands upon their time, can rest easy about ethylene and concentrate on other things,” said Akins.