By Sorma Group

LCP-128A is the new combined weighing machine designed by Sorma Group to overcome the main difficulties relating to the packaging of cluster tomatoes. As those in the trade are well aware, the most time-consuming, labour-intensive phase in the process is the filling of trays with the right combination of fruit to reach a given weight.

“This weighing machine’s innovative concept,” explains Evert-Jan Wassink, Sales Manager of Sorma Benelux, “is that it assists people in completion of a partially pre-filled tray. In practice, peope part-fill the tray with fruit by hand, and then depending on the weight reached, the machine finds the best combination for reaching the guaranteed minimum weight and places the missing weight of fruit on the line next to the tray to be completed. The LCP-128A throughput capacity is up to 60 punnets a minute, making it unique on the market.”

The Sorma Group’s new weighing machine is able to take trays up to 30 cm long and 20 cm wide, saves labour and optimises gross saleable product by preventing the production of overweight trays. It went on the market at the start of this year and the first sales are already being made in the Netherlands and Italy.

“Tomatoes are one of the fruits with the highest consumption rates globally,” comments Mario Mercadini, Marketing Manager of Sorma Group, “but the trade is currently facing a paradoxical situation, with on the one hand staggering rises in production costs, especially for greenhouse-grown products, which have partially been passed on to selling prices, and on the other the real risk of a fall-off in demand due to these price increases. Keeping processing costs down is therefore fundamental for maintaining competitiveness.” 

The LCP-128A weighing machine can also be used for other products with a shape that does not roll, such as grapes, chilli peppers and ginger.

About Sorma Group

Sorma Group was founded in 1973. It is currently the world's only corporate group able to offer a turnkey solution comprising the entire line of machines required to automatically grade, weigh and pack fruit and vegetable products, together with supply of the technical material for creating all forms of packaging. It offers more than 160 automatic machine models, protected by 60 patents entirely developed by an in-house team of 35 engineers.

More than 30 fruit and vegetable products can be graded and presented with the utmost precision and reliability to effectively respond to the increasingly demanding needs of large-scale distribution.

The Group has its own operations centres in Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Turkey, the Netherlands, the USA and Brazil. Alongside these subsidiaries, there are also 40 specialist distributors operating at the global level.

For more information contact: mario.mercadini@netpack.it