Production-Quality Lighting

For agricultural wholesalers, LEDs can plant a seed for efficiency.

In businesses where seeing matters, lighting matters.

Arkon Power, based in Tarpon Springs, Florida, recently completed LED installations for several food preparation companies, where employees must be able to see what they’re doing to be efficient.

“For product preparation markets, we’re finding customers come to us and don’t even realize they stand to save 50% on their power bill, while nearly doubling the light output,” Arkon Power Project Developer Ira Timmerman said. “They might eventually appreciate the savings, but at the end of the day, for these companies it’s all about lighting efficiency and quality.”

For Nickerson Dairy in Zolfo Springs, Florida, Arkon recently installed 18 200-watt high bay LED fixtures in place of the family farm’s legacy 400-watt metal halides. According to Logan Nickerson, the family knew they needed to replace their lighting because the old fixtures constantly broke down and took too long to start in the morning. The new LED lights over the company’s milking floor illuminate immediately when the day starts, require less maintenance, and shed daytime quality light on the dairy cows.

Timmerman said the Nickersons knew they wanted LED lights when they came to Arkon Power, and his team was able to optimize the lumen output required and wattage necessary for the entire Central Florida milking facility. “They were tired of not being able to see,” Timmerman said. “We looked at what they had before, examined multiple mounting heights, and dialed everything in.”

Nickerson is one of almost a dozen product preparation firms Arkon has serviced across Florida’s agriculture-rich regions. The Gulf Coast-based LED services firm also recently completed a job for Burgin Farms Quality Produce in Plant City and Wauchula, Florida, where the firm’s fluorescent tube lighting had become too unreliable and dim to keep the packing facility operating smoothly.

Timmerman recommended Burgin Farms install 200-watt circular high bays over the area in which the company stores and sorts produce. The upgrade satisfied regulators at the Florida Department of Agriculture and USDA and increased Burgin Farms’ efficiency.

“For these product markets, we can offer a top-end LED like our ceiling-mounted square high bays or the more cost-effective circular high bays,” Timmerman said. “The high bay is our bread and butter, and these packing houses are tall and wide, which makes them a perfect match for the fixture.”

Email shea@arkonpower.com to learn more about this or any of Arkon Power’s other projects.