Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/332225
26 Potato Grower | JULY 2014 When Neil Justesen started a welding business out of his garage in Oakley, Idaho, in 1998, he couldn't have imagined the heights to which his trade would take him. Or maybe he could—maybe that's why, after 16 years, Justesen's company, Southern Field Welding, is one of the most respected names in the business of manufacturing food processing equipment. Maybe it's that imagination and vision that in 2007 led Dutch company Tummers Methodic to approach Southern Field Welding—often abbreviated to simply :SFW"—about working together on a bi-continental venture. Tummers was interested in some of the produce cutting technology SFW had already marketed in Europe, and proposed that the two companies work together to manufacture and market each other's equipment on their respective sides of the Atlantic. One of the pieces of equipment Justesen and his crew were most interested in was the Tummers rock trap combo, a single piece of machinery that serves as a rock trap, a washer, and a floating debris remover in food handling facilities. SOUTHERN FIELD WELDING HELPS FRESH-PACK INDUSTRY WITH EFFICIENCIES BY TYRELL MARCHANT CLEANING IT UP (top) New approach. Rigby Produce is seeing fresh-pack success with a machine traditionally used for processing. (center) The A Team. (from left) Neil Justesen and Trevis Howard of Southern Field Welding and Bryan Mickelsen of Rigby Produce. (lower) Clean as a whistle. Newly clean potatoes make their way from the Tummers to be packaged.