After a period of trials, BlueMorph UV delivered their first commercial ultraviolet light sanitation unit to Jackson Family Wines in September 2015, and in December of that year, they were presented with a WINnovation Award for their groundbreaking approach to tank sanitation.
Alex Farren with BlueMorph UV emitter at Jackson Family Wines in Windsor
Since then interest in the BlueMorph has continued to grow. Jackson Family Wines have adopted it as part of their progressive sustainability and water saving initiatives, and several more BlueMorph units are going to be delivered to their different facilities.
“We’ve helped cut back Jackson’s’ water use significantly,” says Alex Farren, CEO of BlueMorph UV, “and we’ve had lots of third party tests done demonstrating that our results are more consistently reproducible and effective than traditional sanitation methods.”
In fact, BlueMorph UV is so confident in their technology that they are now offering a performance guarantee. If the BlueMorph UV doesn’t equal or improve on current the sanitation method, the winery can return the equipment for a full refund.
Broad interest in the water, time, and energy saving technology has also made BlueMorph UV add two different size units to reach more segments within the wine industry.
“We’ve added two new sizes of units, one midsize and one small. The midsize unit will do up to about a 12,000 gallon tank, and the smaller unit will do around a 3,000 gallon tank,” explains Farren. “Those are for smaller wineries that don’t have the hundred thousand gallon tanks.”
One of the midsize units, called the UVT 6K, was purchased right as it was released and has successfully been in operation for over 6 months. New features have also been added to the big original unit to track and record sanitations.
“The new features on this unit will record and email tank sanitation activity,” says Farren, “so you can track which tank was sanitized at what time, by whom, and for how long.”
The UV sanitation method has also garnered international attention. A demo unit is being shipped to a South American distributor in Chile, and Farren’s recent presentation in Australia, where water resources are significantly constrained, received a positive reception, and a unit is being shipped there as well.
Furthermore, Farren plans to expand outside the wine industry. “Different beverage industries also use stainless steel tanks, so we can sanitize and cut back on their time and water use too,” says Farren.
Nominations for the 2016 WINnovation Awards and the North Bay Business Journal’s Wine Industry Awards outstanding wine industry professionals and suppliers are open through October 17, 2016.
By Kim Badenfort
