Needs + challenges

Cherry Hill Coolstores plays a vital role in the agricultural industry, handling substantial volumes of high-value products, including:

• 15,000–16,000 tonnes of potato seed
• 5,000–6,000 tonnes of raspberry and blackberry canes
• 34,000 tonnes of carrots.

To sustain their large-scale operation and meet growing demand, they required purpose-built facilities, including a potato processing facility, a cane storage shed, and a cool storage shed with a dedicated carrot wash line. The challenge was to deliver these solutions efficiently while tailoring them to the specific demands of the agricultural industry, allowing Cherry Hill to remain focused on their core business.

Success made simple

According to Cherry Hill Coolstores: “Working with Bison really gives us the confidence to allow them to do what they do best … build the facilities that we need, to do what we do best.” This partnership resulted in:

• Purpose-built spaces for potato, cane, and carrot operations.
• Streamlined construction with minimal disruption to daily work.
• Facilities tailored to handle the scale and complexity of their agricultural processes.
• Cool storage that controls temperature and CO₂ levels, and uses ambient air to assist with humidity and energy requirements

Needs + challenges

Australia’s leading supplier of decorative timber, Porta stands as testament to over 90 years of excellence in the Australian timber industry. When their Bridgewater plant needed new warehousing and sawmill facilities, Bison was considered “the obvious choice”. According to Tasmanian Operations Manager, John Meehan, Porta valued our methods and technology for lifting structures into place, which proved to be safe, quick and cost-effective. The Porta team needed a warehouse for dry material being sent on to Victorian factory. Priorities were an open design, access from different sides, height and
flexibility. For the sawmill, priorities were achieving the optimal space and layout for equipment, as well as speed of construction – to be up and running as quickly as possible.

Success made simple

Porta Timber’s industrial warehouse and sawmill were custom-designed to achieve new efficiencies every day, with easy flexibility for future growth. A key advantage of the new warehouse space is the ability to bring a truck into the loading area for the first time. With the structure’s large span, a full Tautliner can be loaded inside out of the rain. The overall warehouse design has provided more versatility and capacity to respond to daily demands. The new sawmill is purpose-built to accommodate Porta’s large amount of equipment. It was installed and operational quickly and the Porta team appreciated our “active and consistent approach: in terms of putting the sheds up and getting the two
aligned”. John says construction went ahead without a hitch and safety was paramount at every step. Bison’s approach to building the shed from the ground enabled electricians to do a lot of pre-installation work, and John added that Bison worked well with – and helped coordinate – many other contractors, making the “project flow a lot easier”.