New Fruit-sorting Technology Helps Curb Food Waste

Earlier this year, Compac Sorting Equipment, part of TOMRA Food, launched its Field Research Unit, which can be deployed on lands to research the fresh produce industry’s most challenging issues. James Flocchini, Compac’s regional director for South Africa and Asia, spoke to Denene Erasmus about how the unit will be used to develop solutions for the citrus industry specifically and how the technology can ultimately help limit food waste.

- Denene Erasmus

HOW DID THE NEED AND THE IDEA FOR THE FIELD RESEARCH UNIT (FRU) ARISE?

Compac provides integrated post-harvest solutions and services to the global fresh produce industry, using the world’s most advanced grading technology. However, the demands of feeding the growing global population are driving the need to know more about each piece of produce as it is sorted in the packhouse and in repackaging centres. By measuring other attributes, we can further improve sorting to optimise productivity, reduce waste and maximise customer value. One of the biggest challenges that developers of new equipment and technology for the food and agriculture sector confront is getting the type of data and information that can inform decisions about what new capabilities the market really needs from high-tech equipment.

A while ago, the president and CEO of TOMRA Food, Stefan Ranstrand, asked me what the biggest problem was for the citrus industry. Judging from the presentations given at recent international conferences and symposiums, I told him it was probably false coddling moth (FCM). We realised that if we could find a solution that would enable us to visually sort and sense for FCM in fruit and remove the affected fruit before it is packaged for marketing, that would be a huge benefit to the industry. We decided about a year ago to make a big effort to find a solution. We first tried to get fruit to our research and sensor development centre in Germany to analyse it using a spectrometer and other sensors, but getting fruit, especially if it was affected by FCM, to Germany, was very difficult. That is when we got the idea: if we couldn’t get the fruit to the laboratory, why not take the lab to the fruit?