Restrain is ready!

With the non-renewal of CIPC in the European market leaving a huge gap in the potato storage sprout suppression market and growers urgently looking for alternatives for crops, Restrain, a residue free, ethylene gas company has upped its manufacturing investment to find a solution.

Global Sales Director Dirk Garos, made significant investments in the business, enabling the company to increase its manufacturing capacity at its production facility in The Netherlands to provide the capacity needed to fill the gap left by CIPC.

Restrain’s generators have been used for potato storage for more than 14 years and are fitted with sensors that maintain a stable, low level of ethylene, which is vital for the safe storage of potatoes. The generators have a 20 litre fuel capacity, so daily filling is not required.

Dirk said: “We completely redesigned our machines, taking the manufacturing in house to improve machine quality and investing heavily in the development of our sensor technology. This means our new B100 and B200 generators require limited annual maintenance and are fully calibrated before leaving our site, making them ready to use straight away.”

Following a series of successful variety trials, Restrain technology has recently been adopted by many in the global potato processing sector, who are leaning towards more sustainable, chemical free solutions.

Dirk added: “Seeing that the processing sector might need alternative solutions to CIPC, we invested in multiple processing variety trials to ensure that we have robust data for processing customers. Our results show that fry colours are preserved, there is no need for a delay between storage and processing and the potatoes are completely residue free.”

Restrain is priced in line with CIPC and customers do not need to pay for the machines themselves. They are supplied free of charge, with customers paying a fee on a per tonne basis for the crops they are storing. Restrain has also invested heavily in ensuring regulatory approval of its ethylene product for use on potatoes for table, processing and seed. Restrain operates across 30 countries worldwide in sectors including potato and onion storage, tomato, bell pepper and banana ripening, with full regulatory approval.