New Zealand packing and grading technology firm Compac Sorting Equipment has won a huge new contract with US grower-marketer Paramount Citrus.
Worth US$15m (NZ$18.4m), the contract will see Compac outfit Paramount’s new 57,000m2 packing facility in Delano, California with a sorting machine the company said will be the length of a rugby field (around 100m).
The machine, which will use Compac’s InVision camera grading system, will sort 2.7m mandarins an hour, and run for 20 hours a day during peak season, Compac detailed. Paramount is the world’s largest citrus company.
“We were able to show that over the life of the solution our technology would not only give greater performance but have a lower cost of ownership,” said Dave Buys, Compac’s sales and marketing director.
Compac has brought on new staff to increase its capacity for the huge contract, which will see the company delivering 40 shipping containers of equipment to the US, assembled by a team of 20 staff on-site.
The installation is expected to wrap up in September next year.
