This innovative technology has been entirely designed and manufactured by UNITEC, an international group that provides state-of-the-art technologies in cherry grading and packing with 90 years of experience in the fruit and vegetable industry.
"The line started production on May," said Northern Fruit owner Doug Pauly, talking about the new installation, “And this follows our 6 lane machine installed in 2012. Now every cherry packed at Northern is with UNITEC technology.”
The Northern Fruit cherry installation is comprised of an innovative UNITEC cluster cutter and a total of 18 lanes for sizing, color and defect selection.
“We are delighted with UNITEC’s sizing capability and control. The color separation allows us to deliver much higher consistency with checkerboard lots,” Doug Pauly continues, “The electronic defect removal is a significant help for staying in grade on high damage lots. The same is true with softness detection features.”
The new electronic cherry sorting system at Northern Fruit is equipped with CHERRY_VISION©, the innovative system that offers non-destructive detection of the external and internal quality of cherries. CHERRY_VISION© has changed the way cherries are graded thanks to automatic detection removing cullets, debris and undersize defects with high precision and reliability.
“When packing high damage lots the ability to remove a % of defects electronically has been a huge help,” Pauly adds, “We also believe the system’s softer transfers reduces line damage.”
“Both packing lines were designed, built and delivered on time. UNITEC’s experienced installation team had the lines fully ready to run when our first cherries arrived. They are competent, efficient and good people to work with. UNITEC’s sales and design teams were extremely helpful in creating layouts to fit their machinery within our existing packing rooms,” Pauly comments.
He continues, “In my opinion UNITEC is the global leader in electronic cherry packing systems. Their team is making continual improvements to the technology. As reliable and appreciated partners for Northern Fruit, I highly recommend them.”
The success of UNITEC technologies is confirmed by more than 700 lanes already sold in over 23 countries worldwide (485 equipped with CHERRY_VISION©). 157 of these have been sold in US. 156 lanes, in the US, are equipped with CHERRY_VISION©.
A remarkable achievement reflective of the company’s experience, professionalism and reliability.
UNITEC has recently established the new subsidiary UNITEC USA with headquarter in STOCKTON (CA), to be closer to its American Customers and help them with its technologies and professionalism.
UNITEC USA is fully operational with after-sales service staff and a spare parts warehouse.
