Australian Packinghouse BackCreek Orchard recently deployed UNITEC’s Cherry Vision 3.0 technology and spoke to how its improved their operations.
“Cherry Vision 3.0 sees the totality of the cherry,” said Stuart Walton, owner of BackCreek Orchards. “It doesn’t miss the apical part of the fruit, while many other companies’ cameras do.”
Walton also cited UNITEC’S high level of customer service and the fact that all manufacturing is done in-house as factors in their decision.
According to UNITEC, Cherry Vision 3.0 is able to identify the highest quality cherries and pack only that fruit with the longest shelf life. It sorts out external blemishes, softness, and absence or presence of stem via its new high-resolution cameras which makes it possible to see the entire surface of the fruit, even in the most hidden parts. Cherry Vision 3.0 allows separating overripe fruit from fruit with an adequate level of ripeness touts UNITEC, thus preventing contamination of the good product and ensuring arrival at its destination in optimal conditions, even after travelling for many days.
Cherry Vision 3.0 has enabled BackCreek Orchard to improve its brand reputation, achieve competitive advantage and reach particularly profitable target markets.
“Cherry Vision 3.0 opened the doors with so many supermarkets and agents,” said Walton. “They are banging on the door because they know the technology is good and they want our fruit.” The system allows the company to pack cherries with utmost quality and homogeneity within and between each package.
This recent technology upgrade has substantially increased BackCreek’s production efficiency and led to savings in labor costs.
“You don’t need anyone on the line, you don’t need staff to physically handle the fruit and check it,” said Walton. “It’s faultless, we can’t complain. We packed for three other growers, one of whom who used to pack manually said it would have taken him eight hours to pack what we did in an hour and a half.”
BackCreek’s success is a source of great satisfaction for the UNITEC team and that it confirms that its technology for the selection of the quality of cherries leads to benefits at all levels of the supply chain.
