Atlas Technologies will roll out an invention that the owners of the Port Townsend firm say extends the shelf life of food — and which they hope will grow more jobs on the Peninsula — after a culinary tourism workshop today.
Atlas Technologies, which is in the Glen Cove Industrial Park in Port Townsend, will make a special presentation on the system it perfected — the “advanced low-pressure storage system,” or ALPS — at 3:30 p.m. after the second day of the Olympic Peninsula Culinary/Agritourism Workshop at Company B, Fort Worden State Park Commons in Port Townsend.
Company president Dick Bothell, and his son and vice president, Jed, call the system a “game-changer” in the food production industry.
It can freshly store vegetables, fruits, meats and flowers up to 10 times longer than conventional refrigeration, they said.
The process essentially vacuums oxygen from air-tight cold storage, keeping foods fresh. It stops bacteria, fungus and mold growth, and kills insects and their eggs, the Bothells said.
They hope to see their business expand in the wake of the new technology, with the possibility of creating “several hundred new jobs” on the Peninsula.
The two-day Olympic Peninsula Culinary/Agritourism Workshop, sponsored by State Tourism and the State Department of Agriculture, began Wednesday and ends today.
The Bothells will be joined in their presentation by inventor Stanley Burg and researchers Tom Davenport of the University of Florida and Jim Mattheis of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Wenatchee.
Mobile system
They will present the company’s first mobile system, which looks like a space-age, computerized truck-trailer storage box.
It was designed by Atlas ALPS and built by Lincoln Industries Corporation in Port Angeles.
Software was developed on the North Olympic Peninsula, and Atlas built other components.
The 50,000-pound ALPS mobile unit measuring 41-foot-long, 9-foot-6 inches wide and 11-foot-6 high will later this month be towed to a major flower importer in Miami, Fla., that has about 10 percent of the $6 billion flower business there.
Flower growing and imports are a $14 billion industry nationwide.
Dick Bothell said ALPS storage will allow flower importers to store roses when demand is low and harvesting is cheaper, in December for instance, then selling them when demand is at its peak on Valentine’s Day.
Fruit, berry season
Locally, the system could also help extend the season for fruit and berry farmers.
“A lot of organic farmers grow strawberries, but their season ends in June and that is the end of the crop,” on the Peninsula, Dick Bothell said.
ALPS could extend the short lives of ripe-picked strawberries into the summer without freezing, he said.
“This will allow it to remain the way nature intended it to be,” he said, adding that the system would extend strawberry shelf life three-fold.
Fruit is typically picked in an immature state to accommodate typical transit time to market from distant farms.
ALPS will allow fruit to be picked at the optimum flavor quality available for longer storage without spoilage or water loss, the Bothells said.
Once fruit is removed from ALPS storage, it resumes ripening in its original atmospheric condition, they said.
The process could be used for dry-aging of meat and for dramatically slowing bacterial growth in fish.
Growing business
Atlas Technologies — which employs 27 people, and manufactures vacuum components and chambers for government labs and other markets, such as semiconductor and solar — was founded more than 16 years ago by the Bothell father-and-son team.
The business has grown to more than 12,000 square feet.
ALPS is now a new division of the original Atlas Technologies.
The elder Bothell said he and his son want to remain with their family on the North Olympic Peninsula, and hope to find space to grow either in Jefferson or Clallam counties and would likely seek equity investors.
The company has long been self-financed through Port Angeles-based First Federal.
ALPS could conceivably lead to the need for a larger production facility, and Dick Bothell said he hopes that could be located on the Peninsula.
He said sites such as the 24-acre Jefferson County International Airport site that the county commissioners recently rezoned to light industrial for the Port of Port Townsend were what the company could consider.
He also expressed interest in the former Walmart site east of Port Angeles.
“We’re running out of room,” Dick Bothell said.
Airtight storage
The ALPS storage unit came about as a result of scientist and inventor Stanley Burg’s work on airtight storage, which led to his patenting of low-pressure storage technology.
Bothell said Burg was introduced to Atlas Technologies five years ago, and the company began to learn about the technology by building research systems for Davenport, who studies low-pressure storage to eliminate the use of methyl bromide to kill fruit flies infecting mangoes and papayas.
Another research system went to Mattheis, who studies low-pressure storage of temperate fruit, apples, cherries, pears and other fruits.
The company is now building its own research lab for ALPS inside a former refrigerated semi-truck trailer.
Katherine Baril, Washington State University executive director in Port Hadlock who supervises Team Jefferson Economic Development, expressed enthusiasm for Atlas ALPS.
“We’re certainly be hearing more about this,” Baril said. “I think the fact that they already have a national market for it is a good thing.
“This works for them and expands their market, not only seasonally but geographically.”
________
Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
