Produce World will be the first UK company to install Near Infra-Red (NIR) technology, to detect internal defects in onions, in its factories.
The UK onion supplier will be trialling the detection system as part of an ongoing improvement campaign.
Andrew Holding, business unit director for Produce World Rustler, said: “We have been monitoring the progress of this technology for some time, and it was always our intention to retrofit such a system to our MAF grader. However, we want to be sure that it would perform under day-to-day operating conditions and make commercial sense.
“By definition internal defects are impossible to detect. As a result of using the very best growers, such defects only occur on a small percentage of the crop. However, a reduction in this figure will enable us to further improve quality and customer satisfaction.”
