Colors Fruit, the largest privately owned fruit exporter in South Africa, has formed a strategic alliance with sorting machine manufacturer Greefa Europe.
The technology will be a first for the South African fruit industry when it is implemented in Colors’ flagship packhouse, Novo.
Colors owns and manages seven packhouses, including Novo, which is situated in Paarl in the Western Cape.
The original Novo packhouse in Paarl was the humble beginning of the
Colors Group just over a decade ago. The packhouse was damaged beyond repair in a devastating fire in April last year, but the silver lining of the catastrophe was that it created the platform for a new beginning and the development of the strategic partnership with Greefa.
Also a family business, Greefa Europe has developed high-quality sorting machines for more than half a century, with a strong global reputation. The company designs every part of its machines and modules, and can therefore offer unique solutions regarding functionality, ease of use and sorting requirements.
A statement from the two firms said: “Because both companies embody a pioneering spirit and value the innovative thinking of their employees, the strategic alliance between Colors and Greefa is not only a comfortable cultural fit, but a quantum leap for the South African fruit industry, setting a new world-class benchmark for
local packhouses.”
Dick Verkade from Greefa Europe said: “We are very happy to have come to the strategic partnership with the Colors Group. We have found each other in innovations and state-of-the-art technologies. Our mutual aim is to upgrade the South African fruit industry with the latest technologies.”
The first phase of implementation in the new Novo packhouse started in the first week of December and the objective for the project is to have the first production line commissioned by early June 2010.
The new packhouse will be able to sort and pack fruit at unprecedented efficiency levels, which the firms claim is more than double than the industry norm in South Africa, while giving significant consideration to the environmental sustainability of the new installation.
The technology to be provided by Greefa will be a first for the South African industry and will include the iQSIII and iFA sorting systems. iQSIII is an intelligent quality sorter that sorts fruit automatically according to its external quality by using special infra-red and colour cameras, and utilising advanced software analyses techniques.
iFA, or the intelligent flavour analyser, determines the internal quality of fruit by analysing it using near infra red (NIR). The entire fruit is screened and the brix value, internal brownness and core rot can be determined accurately.
Along with equipment supplies, the strategic partnership will allow Colors Fruit preferential access to future sorting technology invented by Greefa’s research and development team.
Willem Bestbier, Colors group operations director, said: “Innovation and thought leadership lies at the core of Colors as a business. The new Novo packhouse will truly be a physical testimony to this pioneering spirit.”
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