Farmer's Weekly (South Africa)
Your personal lab
Compac has launched a new mobile field research unit for the citrus industry. Joe Spencer reports.
New Zealand-based Compac provides lanesorting solutions for the the international fresh produce market. The company’s most recent intitiative, however, was a very different concept: a mobile citrus field research unit (FRU) that can be used to analyse a wide range of crop parameters on site.
The FRU is effectively a state-of-the-art laboratory equipped with sophisticated analytical sensor technologies, and is the first of its kind in the fresh produce industry.
A converted 12m shipping container is used to facilitate easy transport to wherever fresh produce needs to be investigated. It can be deployed at any stage of the supply chain, from orchard to point of sale.
The data collected can be analysed to improve producesorting and help drive future product development.
The equipment in the FRU includes spectrometers, hyperspectral imaging hardware (used for monitoring the health of the crop), texture analysers, the new Compac Inspectra2 internal inspection system for fresh produce, and the Tomra QVision, optimised for protein, moisture and fat analysis.
Farmers and processors are under pressure to produce increasing food supplies ever more efficiently. A key way to achieve this cost-effectively is to know more about each item as it is sorted in the packhouse and repacking centres.
Advanced Compac sensors are already deployed in packhouses, but measuring other attributes can further improve sorting to optimise productivity, reduce waste and maximise customer value.
a warm Welcome
The FRU was introduced at a four-day CRI Symposium recently held at the Champagne Sports Resort in the Drakensberg. The symposium is a biennial event aimed at sharing findings of recent research conducted on behalf of the Southern African citrus industry.
Speaking at the event, Dean Barker, director of research and development projects at Compac, said the FRU brought a sophisticated test laboratory to a customer’s front door.
Dr Sean Moore, integrated pest management portfolio manager with Citrus Research International (CRI), said the FRU was “a welcome initiative for the citrus industry”.
“We look forward to being able to work with the unit in advancing this important technology within the industry.”
Compac is part of Norway’s Tomra Systems, which specialises in packhouse automation systems for sorting fruit and vegetables based on weight, size, shape, colour, surface blemishes and internal quality. • Joe Spencer is the mechanisation editor of Farmer’s Weekly.
For more information on the equipment in this report, email him at farmersweekly@caxton.co.za. Subject line: Equipment.