France’s MAF Roda used the occasion of last month’s Fruit Logistica exhibition to show off its new Bi-Axone sizer for pears, which sorts the fruit for size, shape, colour and both internal and external defects.
The line has three tracks and a capacity of around 6 tonnes an hour, with more than 250 analyses made for each pear.
According to marketing and communications manager Christophe Nivet, the company has already installed one machine at Belgian pear packer Van Haelst Fruit, in Verrebroek.
“Nothing like it exists anywhere else in the world,” he said. “The shape of the Conference pear makes the fruit difficult to rotate, but this is a very smooth machine that takes care not to bruise the fruit.”
“The first year was a bit of a struggle, figuring out how to guide the fruit so that it turned correctly,” revealed Nivet. “We had to modify the flow so that it was steadier. Then we started getting the results we wanted.”
The pears are scanned across their entire length, and then the pear is turned, allowing 100 per cent of the fruit to be analysed and all defects to be identified.
The machine has a margin of error of less than 2 per cent, with internal defects sorted thanks to the use of HD and infrared cameras.
The Bi-Axone machine is specially designed for pears, but MAF Roda also sees the potential for its future application on other products, including apples and carrots.
