High-Capacity Sorter Ensures Gentle Handling of Delicate Fruit
Curt Maberry Farm was looking to remove the foreign material and defects, such as mold in raspberries or stems in blueberries, color blemishes or damaged items from its products prior to packing. It was also looking to automate this part of the process in order to free up pickers on the line for deployment elsewhere in the facility. That’s why the Lynden, Wash.-producer of individual quick-frozen fruit products selected Buhler’s state-of-the-art SORTEX optical sorting technology.
John Reneau, production manager at Curt Maberry Farm, turned to Bühler, who had installed its demonstration SORTEX E1D optical sorter at the plant at the end of last year. Drawing on three powerful technologies—color bichromatic cameras, enhanced InGaAs and PROfile (shape) technology—the SORTEX E1D allowed Curt Maberry to detect and remove foreign materials, such as leaves, stems and mold, as well as over and undersized product.