FDBusiness.com

Produce World, one of the largest expert growers and suppliers of high quality fresh vegetables in Europe, continues to lead the industry with the installation a new carrot grading machine that will improve quality control. Working in conjunction with Newtec, the company which provided the grader, Produce World Yaxley will use the machine to replace on-the-line manual grading.

Raw material, labour, and energy costs are all rising and Produce World has invested in the new carrot grading machine to help offset these rises through process improvements.

The machine uses cameras to detect defects and takes up to 40 photos of each carrot.  The machine takes the images and flattens them out to look for the defect then decides whether the carrot is within the tolerances set.  If it is good it passes through the machine, if it is out of specification the machine rejects the carrot.  The whole process for each carrot takes around one second.

The machine grades approximately 80,000 carrots every hour, taking into account length, shape and colour, and it can detect 10 different quality defects. Jamie Tointon, Factory Manager for Produce World Yaxley, says: “We have a continuous improvement culture and have up to 20 projects on the go at any one time, all of which bring benefits to the business.  The machine installation shows our customers that we are committed to improving the business by putting processes in place that will ensure quality continues to be of the highest standard.”