Bee Sweet Citrus is an independent packer and shipper of California citrus, offering year-round access to oranges, lemons, grapefruits, blood oranges, mandarins, tangelos and pomelos. The company’s 400,000 square-foot campus in Fowler, California, can process more than 3,500 bins of citrus per day and offers cold storage capacity for 280,000 cartons of citrus. With access to so many different types of citrus, Bee Sweet enables retailers to streamline the procurement process by sourcing multiple product types from a single source, rather than using different suppliers for each.

The company prioritized investments in sophisticated equipment and technology in the pursuit of greater efficiency. Continued growth blossomed into a second packing house in Fowler, and the company scaled up to serve its current volume of 10 million cartons per year, serving big-box retailers, grocery stores and export markets. Eventually, rising labor costs, safety concerns, high staff turnover and potential production increases meant that remaining profitable and reaching peak efficiency required investment in an automated palletizing solution.

Honeywell Intelligrated was able to check all the boxes Bee Sweet Citrus was looking for, such as system flexibility. In addition to providing the necessary equipment, Honeywell Intelligrated also offered a process marked by clear, consistent communication, thorough operational analysis and collaborative decision- making. The Honeywell Intelligrated team took the time to research and understand Bee Sweet’s unique business challenges and leverage their citrus industry expertise from previous projects to produce a superior solution concept.

Check out our full case study to learn how the partnership between Honeywell Intelligrated and Bee Sweet Citrus resulted in increased facility efficiency and throughput.