Pre-sizing cherries
04-10-06
In preparation to pack an estimated one million cartons this year, Copefrut, Chile’s largest cherry packer, took delivery last year of a cherry pre-sizing lug filler. So pleased with it’s success, Copefrut asked GP Graders of Australia to build a second pre-sizing lug filler for another line. A third pre-sizing lug filler was also sent to Chile for the coming season, for another large packer, Unifrutti.
The breakthrough from GP Graders has enabled the cherry post harvest handling process to be separated into two stages: pre-sizing and packing. This has led to a 70% time saving in grading and up to a 30% saving in packing staff costs.
The pre-sizing system optimizes productivity of the line as a whole. It eliminates the need to dedicate packing lines and staff to low volume cherry sizes. Pre-sized cherries are set aside in cool storage until a sufficient quantity warrants packing. Then each size is packed separately to specific orders. All sorting and packing staff are fully utilized where one size of fruit is packed at a time as fruit can be spread evenly over all packing stations.
Cherries are cluster separated by GP Graders gentle cluster cutter before sizing. Sized fruit is kept separate in a water tank and is delivered by elevator to a mixing system which allows packers to dedicate multiple lug filler lanes to high volume fruit.
The lug filler is a tank of hydro cooled water containing six conveyor belts running its length. The conveyors are loaded with lugs which are automatically filled. Cherries are gently dropped from the feed belts into lugs and a depth gauge sensor determines when the lug is full and halts the feed belt. At this point the conveyor advances and an empty lug is positioned for filling. Each 10kg lug is filled about once every 8 seconds.
The lugs can then either be conveyed directly to cool storage or can pass through a hydrocooling shower conveyor, depending on the requirements of the packing shed.
Freshtrack SoftwareTM, GP Graders’ supermarket compliant produce tracking software is used in conjunction with the lug filler. When each lug is filled a “luggage style” label is printed and affixed to ensure that all tracking information about the cherries is retained with the lug. This is used to reconcile deliveries with sized fruit and details can include grower, orchard lot, variety and size.
Fruit in lugs remains in cool storage until it is packed to order or until a sufficient quantity of a size is available for packing. The label barcode is scanned at the beginning of the packing process to reconcile the sized lugs with the packed fruit. Lugs are hand tipped onto the beginning of the packing line and packed according to the required packing method including bags, clam shells or loose fill. Packing stations are equipped with bar-coding label printers and labels are affixed to cartons fed with data provided at the delivery end of the machine.
Packing staff no longer need to wait for a batch lot to clear after individual grower’s fruit has been packed. Fruit from each grower can be pre-sized and stored in lugs until sufficient fruit of a size is collected to pack. Freshtrack SoftwareTM provides information about storage locations and volumes. This saves a great deal of down time. Copefrut now spend one shift pre-sizing and two shifts packing which is a much more efficient use of resources. They envisage that their two lines fitted with the pre-sizing lug fillers will pack two thirds of the season’s expected one million cartons. Three further lines will pack the remaining third.
For more information about pre-sizing lug fillers or Freshtrack SoftwareTM go to www.gpgraders.com to locate a local agent or phone +61 3 9585 9444.
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