Until now, many people believed that Rainier cherries could only be separated by hand or by use of a water separator. Hand separating is labour intensive and costly, driving up packing costs and slowing down the operation. Many Rainer packers have sought an alternate method. Water separators have a low success rate, at times only managing to separate 70% of cherries, requiring additional resources to separate the remaining cherries. Water separators can only handle a low volume of cherries at once and are therefore not suitable for larger operations.
The GP Graders cluster cutter has always been a gentle, high volume solution with at least 98% of cherries successfully separated. Testing has shown no difference between hand separated cherries and those separated by a GP Graders cluster cutter after 45 days in cool storage, replicating long shipping times.
Rainier cherries are more delicate than the hardier red varieties and many packers were still not comfortable separating them mechanically so GP Graders have redesigned the cluster cutter to eliminate any possible concerns.
Most important to most Rainer packers, is that the fall from the end of the cluster cutter has been reduced by over 75%. The cherries always dropped into a water flume for a soft landing but the reduced fall will provide an even more gentle transfer.
The newly designed grooved belting continues to protect cherries and is now even more gentle due to rounder edges and a softer belt composite. The new cluster cutter belting runs even more smoothly than before due to mechanical improvements resulting in less vibrations and a gentle ride. And the unit is extremely quiet.
The 200 blade GP Graders cluster cutters can easily and gently handle 6 tonnes per hour. For smaller operations a 120 blade cluster cutter is available with all the same features.
