Stemilt Growers has turned to processing and sorting technology specialist Unitec to help develop an innovative new facility for cherry packing.

The sorting plant, located in Stockton, California, boasts 40 lanes with a nominal production capacity of 1,200 fruits per second, and a productio capacity of around 800/900 fruits per second, all integrated with Cherry Vision technology for non-destructive selection of interal and external fruit quality.

'The startup of our California line was one of, if not the, best start of a cherry line in the 50-year history of Stemilt,' said West Mathison, president of Stemilt Growers. 'In addition, in the first seven days of operations we hit a major performance goal for the line. Unitec back up the sales pitch with execution.'

Unitec sales director Raffaele Benedetti said his group was proud of the work they had carried out on the new cherry line.

“The satisfaction expressed by our customers, their managers and technicians is what gives our team the most satisfaction,' he added. 'We like to think of our business as a win-win affair. And we believe that with the Stemilt company this has proved to be the case. We would like to thank the Stemilt staff who worked with us and helped us to create these great results”.

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