Packing truss tomatoes

Two automated packing lines being purpose-built in the Netherlands for deVineRipe's 8.2 hectare truss tomato facility in South Australia will incorporate the first technology of its kind used in glasshouse production in Australia.

The $30 million project is a collaboration between leading fresh produce marketing company Perfection Fresh, agribusiness investment manager Timbercorp Limited and senior horticulturist and glasshouse specialist Greg Prendergast.

Perfection Fresh's national value-add manager Dwayne Millard said the packaging technology, currently being manufactured by Viscon, of Holland, had been designed to maximise output while minimising production costs.

DeVineRipes packing lines comprise an automated bulk line for produce weighing up to 5 kg and a pre-packing line for smaller quantities weighing up to 1 kg. The bulk line is capable of producing 25 five kilogram trays a minute while the pre-packing line has the capacity to process 84 packs of 500 g per minute.

With the bulk line, the produce will come from the glasshouse in five kilogram trays before being automatically destacked, checked and weighed at five stations by packing staff who will add or subtract fruit to minimise overpacking and tag the trusses. This will be the only manual handling part of the process, Miller said.

Produce sent to the pre-packing line will arrive in different sizes and be sent to 28 manned stations where it will be placed on trays and weighed before being flow wrapped, check weighed, automatically labelled, packed into cartons, strapped and then sent to cold rooms in preparation for dispatch.

The packing lines will be assembled before transportation in early June, disassembled, and packed into containers and shipped. Viscon and its Australian-based representative Hortraco, with two deVineRipe staff, are expected to take up to six weeks to install the equipment.

DeVineRipe is expected to employ about 24 people in the packing facility with a total of 80 jobs generated by the project as a whole, Mr Millard said.

The facility is expected to produce 5000 t of truss tomatoes a year to address a shortfall in domestic production. Fruit processed at the plant will be dispatched to Perfection Fresh's retail customer's distribution centres and central markets in every state.

The first harvest is expected to take place in October.