Nicola Antonacci from Zetapack stated, “The owners are very satisfied with how the selector has improved their work. It has increased the efficiency, especially regarding the hourly yield. Before, the process was totally manual. Today, thanks to our machine, the identification of the different sizes and weights is carried out automatically. The operators have only to take the fruits, identifying them thanks to a led-light”.
The really innovative aspects of Zetapack are the loading process, the selection through a camera and a software, the LED tracking light and the discharge. Both the loading and unloading are done manually. According to the customers’ demands, the selector can separate the fruits by weight, by size and by colour thanks to the software. Each station corresponds to a calibration and the operator realizes he must pick up the fruit because a LED light signals it.
The selector can be used for other fruits than pears, such as persimmons, mangoes, avocados, cherimoyas and flat peaches.
Antonacci specified, “We want to bring the consumers as close as possible to good fruit, in terms of organoleptic properties. In order to do this, we must harvest it at the latest ripening stage possible. Thanks to our selector machine, fruit can be harvested when it is riper than in the past because the loading and unloading phases are carried out by hand, whereas the computerized system selects on the basis of the set parameters”.
