Many consumers may not understand why such a large event is organised for something as simple as fresh fruit and vegetables. The truth is there is an incredibly sophisticated supply chain involved – it’s not as simple as picking a fruit, placing it in a box and sending it to the grocery store.

Compac’s role in this supply chain is to provide technology and solutions to packhouses across the globe. It analyses, grade and sort every single piece of fruit to ensure customers know exactly what they are packaging. This ensures all fresh produce goes into the highest paying box and every piece of fruit finds a home – premium quality items are branded and sold while imperfect items are used for fruit juices or sold as ‘ugly fruit’. It’s important to Compac that all edible fruit is used, increasing returns to the growers and reducing food waste.

At the PMA Fresh Summit it announced five new products and services to show customers how they can achieve this:

• Inspectra2  - The Inspectra2™platform uses a spectrometer to measure light absorption as an indicator of internal properties and defects without touching the produce - read more. 
• Spectrim 2.1 - Solving the issue of clear rot - a major issue facing citrus growers and packhouses is clear rot, which results in fruit suffering from post-harvest decay that can continue to develop and spread during storage and transportation. Early detection is crucial to remove affected fruit from the line and avoid contamination of large amounts of fresh produce. Spectrim 2.1 now includes an improved memorarchitecture - read more.
• Cherry End View - End View is the new cherry grading technology that utilizes learnings from Compac’s Spectrim platform to improve outcomes for cherry-specific produce lines.  End View will be available as a modular upgrade for existing customers, and as part of Compac’s cherry inspection solution InVision 7-View - read more.
• Sizer 12 - Sorting software is one of the most important and often underrated assets of a packhouse. It controls all mechanical components, interprets inspection results, assigns produce to outlets, stores and communicates data, and automatically optimizes line speed, pack weights, and packing configurations to create consistent products and maximise returns to growers - read more.
• Compac Care – Preventative Maintenance Program - Compac’s service is about preventing breakdowns and enabling customers to consistently operate to their potential to deliver on their brand promise. This is a programme it developed with strategic investments in platforms such as ServiceMax, and the establishment of regional offices to enable local support across the globe - read more.

So, why is this level of technology necessary to get fruit and vegetables into grocery stores? Put simply, it’s because the demand for fresh produce is rapidly increasing. There has been a recent global shift in healthy eating with many consumers focusing their diets around fresh produce, with consumers willing to pay a premium for safe, quality produce and fresh brands need to make the most of this opportunity and keep up with this demand.

As one can imagine, meeting these demands would be impossible without technology. Not only is labor expensive and often unavailable, but human error is inevitable which creates consistency issues. After all, a human can’t grade at the accuracy and speed of an inspection system or can they see through a piece of fruit like Inspectra2.

Consistency is vital for successful brands like Zespri, Halos, and Envy. Every piece of fruit represents the brand, and if a customer has a bad experience, they may choose to purchase a different brand or product. This is one of the main reasons why almost 20,000 people from the fresh produce industry crowded into the PMA Fresh Summit last month to learn more about the latest technology available.

There was a great sense of excitement from all corners of the event – this industry is growing and innovators across the world are creating solutions to keep up with this demand.

Compac and TOMRA are both proud to be at the forefront of existing and developing technology that will ensure consistent high-quality, healthy fresh produce is available to consumers across the world.

Those who missed the companies at PMA this year, they will be at Fruit Logisitica, Berlin in February, at hall A-12.

Source: Matt Stillwell, Compac Sorting Equipment