South African apple and pear distributor Tru-Cape has invested in new technologies to improve its packhouse facilities, allowing it to put aside more defective fruit than ever before. 

Marketing director, Conrad Fick, says the newly installed Greefa 10-lane sorter can process eight fruits per second, per lane at Tru-Cape'’s parent packhouse in Grabouw in the Western Cape.

New state-of-the-art technology also ‘'sees into the heart’' of each piece of fruit to pick up internal defects and measure brix levels without the need for cutting into the fruit.

The measuring system, called iFA, analyses the internal characteristics of apples and pears such as water core and internal browning, quickly pinpointing defects.

“"Combined with the new iFA technology that ‘sees’ into the heart of each apple or pear that is processed, we can now deliver a better final product with fewer issues,”" Fick says.

“"Our packhouses have had camera-scanning equipment which increased productivity by 25%, sorted faster and more accurately than before for a while now.

“"Three technologies converge to produce the highest level of sorting intelligence available on the market today and with the iFA sorting at Two-Day (packhouse) we will soon be able to look inside the fruit to check elements such as measuring brix and checking for defects such as internal browning which could not, until now, be determined without cutting into each piece of fruit."

The technology shines a high-intensity light through the fruit and specially programmed software measures the variance in the intensity of the light produced, acting like a fruit-friendly x-ray.

Fick adds how consumer demands are becoming increasingly exacting and stresses the importance of Tru-Cape’'s ability to sort fruit to high color and blemish-free standards.

“"Although harmless, and not impacting on the eating quality of fruit, stem-end russeting (the brown markings around the stem of a Golden Delicious, for example) is only cosmetically pleasing to a certain standard.

“"On bi-color fruit for example, stem-end russet is even harder to discern without the value that the cameras deliver.”"

The system can trace sunburn on apples and tell the difference between hail marks and other types of blemishes.

"“Our competitive advantage is not only that we source our fruit from a wide range of climatic areas but that we can share any relevant information from analyzing fruit with our growers, and can use it as an early warning method to detect any potentially dangerous trends.”"

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