The company was sorting kiwifruit by removing soft and damaged produce by hand, but began to look to sort fruit more efficiently while reducing costs.

After successful trials, UK-based fruit-testing technology specialist Sinclair was commissioned to install an on-line firmness testing system.

The Sinclair IQ firmness tester is a non-destructive system that operates on-line at high speed. It measures the firmness of every individual fruit on-line at a rate of up to 10 fruit a second. The system predicts the ripeness level of each fruit and sorts produce into up to six firmness bands.

Sinclair purpose-designed a two-land firmness testing system for Zespri Europe. The system segregates fruit of a specified firmness and removes any unevenly ripened, soft or bruised produce. The system has the capacity to test and sort up to 32 pallets of fruit (320,000 kiwifruit) a shift.

As a result of its success, a long-term commercial contract with Sinclair has been agreed. Phillip Marechal, Zespri Europe operations manager, said: “The kiwifruit season is unpredictable and our labour requirements varied significantly. It was always difficult to plan resources and sorting fruit by hand was both labour intensive and costly.

“The iQ system has proved that it can do its job well and we are pleased with its performance. It has enabled us to make significant time and cost savings. The flexibility of the system allows us to work quickly and meet demands immediately.”

As a non-destructive testing system, the Sinclair iQ offers considerable savings on the waste and labour costs associated with the penetrometer, the industry standard destructive-pressure measure.

Sensors within the iQ’s system’s patented air bellows touch the surface of each fruit at four separate locations to measure the electrical response. These readings are then used to predict the elastic property of the fruit, which reflects its ripeness level.

Meanwhile, Zespri has signed an operating agreement with HortResearch in New Zealand. Zespri, and crown research institute HortResearch, have moved to strengthen the platform for New Zealand’s largest horticultural exporter with sales of close to NZ$1 billion.

Under the terms of the agreement, intellectual property ownership of Zespri Gold and all new cultivars developed in future by HortResearch will pass to Zespri. HortResearch will also be Zespri’s principal provider of research services.

HortResearch chief executive Paul McGilvary said: “Zespri has committed to increasing its funding of our kiwifruit breeding and research programmes and we have agreed to invest at least half our kiwifruit royalties in further kiwifruit research. We have also secured the certainty of income essential for our long-term planning.”

Zespri chief executive Tim Goodacre said: “The agreement clearly demonstrates Zespri’s commitment to create wealth for New Zealand grower-shareholders through long-term investment in innovation. We have aligned ourselves with HortResearch as our exclusive breeder because HortResearch has the world’s best germplasm resources and has a proven track record in successful kiwifruit research.

“The global success of the HortResearch cultivar Zespri Gold is proof of what can be achieved, with sales of up to NZ$170million (£60m) in just seven years since it was first planted.”

Kiwifruit growers are also positive about the new agreement. President of New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc. Grant Eynon said: “The new and stronger relationship gives growers more security, knowing that the marketing and science effort are working in harmony and with the latest market information.”

The kiwifruit industry continues to grow with Zespri forecasting sales for the year to March 31 to be $930m, 11 per cent higher than last year. Significantly higher volumes and prices are being achieved in Europe and Japan. The new agreement became effective on April 1.

Topics