Packhouse productivity specialist Marco is gearing up for a busy period as it prepares for the kick-off of the European grape season and exporters look for more efficient solutions to speed up supply.

The British group has two major developments going on now in Italy and Spain, with installations also planned for a Mexican company in the coming weeks.

A new deal has just been signed with Italian fresh produce company, Nicofruit, to build a state-of-the-art packing line for grapes and soft fruit.

"Obviously Europe’s grape season is starting soon so lots of people are beginning to think about developing and upgrading their packhouses and packing facilities for the upcoming season," Becky Hart, Marco marketing manager tells www.freshfruitportal.com.

"We are heavily involved with several developments around Europe, as now is a very busy time.

"For instance, we are extremely pleased to have signed a deal with a new customer for us, Nicofruit, and are looking forward to helping the company with its plans for this season and beyond."

This will be a multi-purpose line that packs cases and punnets along a complex conveyor system featuring palletizers, flow wrap machines and case packing positions.

Marco has worked on a bespoke design to meet Nicofruit’s plans to ramp up packing facilities and speed up the process. Nicofruit is made up of more than 30 partners cultivating approximately 400 hectares of land producing grapes, strawberries and stonefruit.

Meanwhile, Marco has also won a contract to supply equipment to a brand new facility for Spanish table grape supplier Moyca.

Moyca is building a state-of-the-art pack house in Totana, to serve its growing customer base and has signed up to Marco’s 'Yield Control System' designed to efficiently produce consistent packed punnets and boxes of table grapes.

In addition, there will be 19 high-definition LED 'efficiency screens' around the pack house keeping track of live production data.

"We have also recently continued to work with another company, Moyca in Spain. We originally installed equipment into Moyca’s packhouse a couple of years ago and they are building a brand new packing facility and are putting in more Marco equipment for the 2016 season.

"Our productivity systems help fruit companies pack their grapes, and other produce, much faster, with less over pack and they can pack to average weight on our scale which makes grape lines run much more efficiently.

"With Moyca we are putting in the scales in the next couple of weeks, but with Nicofruit it’s a much bigger job."

Headquartered in the U.K., Marco says its systems improve productivity by around 30%. The company also exhibited at the international symposium of table grapes, the SIUVA Grape Show in Piura, Peru, on April 20 and 21 in a bid to attract South American companies.

"Although we have had some developments in European countries because it’s the start of the season soon, we are a global company and are also going off to Mexico at the beginning of May to install a new line for a grape company."

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www.freshfruitportal.com