Fruit and vegetable wholesaler Nature’s Pride has installed the ‘world’s first’ avocado packing robot at its Maasdijk, Netherlands facility.
The new Speedpacker, provided by machinery manufacturer Selo, is now operational packing 24 avocados per minute via three feed streams.
Harnessing camera technology the solution identifies the avocados for the grippers, the company said this enables it to pack the fruit ergonomically and efficiently without making concessions to quality.
According to Nautre’s Pride, automating the packing process allows it to keep up with growing demand and it will use the solution to be an even better partner to both growers and customers.
The development of the robot took two years and it has gone through extensive testing explained Selo’s CEO Willibrord Woertman.
He added: “The Speedpacker is the result of a unique collaboration between Selo and Nature’s Pride, where Nature’s Pride contributed all its knowledge of avocados and Selo its knowledge of robotics and grippers.
“We have succeeded in automatically packing avocados which were previously packed manually.”
