The Canadian developers of the genetically altered Arctic apples are ramping up production and preparing to build their first packing and slicing facility.

And they’re not messing around.

“This is a very ambitious program,” said Neal Carter, founder and president of Okanagan Specialty Fruits, during a tour of his Eastern Washington orchards in October. The company uses RNA interference to silence the expression of the gene that causes sliced or bruised apples to turn brown.

The Summerland, British Columbia, company has about 600 acres of Golden Delicious, Granny Smiths and Fujis now and could reach just over 2,000 by 2020, Carter said. That’s enough for 2,000 bins this year and a projected 40,000 bins for 2020. The company has contracts with several Washington nurseries to produce the trees.

Meanwhile, Okanagan Specialty Fruits, or OSF, plans next year to start work on a packing and slicing facility in rural Central Washington. The company has, in the past, experienced vandalism by suspected protesters, so Good Fruit Grower is not sharing the name of the neighboring city.

The plant will start at 96,000 square feet, with an automated grading line and slicing equipment ready for the 2019 crop. Future phases call for expansion to roughly 1 million square feet by 2026, adding more slicing capacity, controlled-atmosphere storage and automated bin storage and product retrieval.

Also, OSF is growing its own apples, a departure from the original business plan to recruit growers with royalties, much like a club variety. In 2015, publicly traded synthetic biology corporation Intrexon acquired OSF as a wholly owned subsidiary and convinced Carter and his team to vertically integrate to control quality, consistency and the environmental and food safety messages.