If this is the first time you’ve seen the term ‘packhouse 4.0’ it certainly won’t be the last. The fresh produce industry is poised on the brink of evolution and digital transformation is the facilitator.

But what does a packhouse 4.0 look like? Where does the term come from? And why should we care?

If it isn’t already, ‘digital transformation of the packhouse’ will become a very familiar term over the coming years. It’s going to herald an exciting new era for an industry responsible for sustaining more people than ever before. It will also drive more opportunities for revenue streams with better use of data.

When you think industry leading, high-tech innovation, the humble potato may not be the first thing that comes to mind. However, the seeds of change have been sewn in the South Australian Potato Market and we are now witnessing the fruits of that harvest.

No matter where I travel, I am always amazed by the passion and pride that growers and distributors take in their work. Their goal is simple, to grow and distribute the best possible produce with which to delight their customers. 

Compac, part of TOMRA Food, the leading provider of post-harvest solutions and services to the fresh produce industry, and Sienz, a manufacturer, integrator and service provider to packers of fresh fruit and produce announced they have entered into a partnership agreement for the supply of produce grading solutions in Australia and New Zealand across a range of selected produce categories.

Compac sponsored and participated in the World Avocado Congress 2019 in Medellín, Colombia. At the exhibition, it showcased the state-of-the-art sorting technologies at the heart of its avocado packhouse solutions:

Italian cooperative Apofruit invested in a Compac InVision Total View cherry sorting platform in 2018 to enhance their ability to deliver consistent quality efficiently. The system was installed in time to save the 2019 cherry season, which got to a terrible start with heavy rains that compromised the quality of the crop. With the InVision Total View platform, Apofruit was able to recover good fruit even from the poor lots it received in the early weeks, resulting in a positive outcome for the cooperative, which closed the difficult season profitably and was able to support its farmer members.

A collaboration between Plant & Food Research and Compac, part of TOMRA Food, has won the PwC Commercial Impact Award at the 2019 KiwiNet Awards for the development of world-leading fruit grading and sorting technologies – Compac’s Spectrim™ and Inspectra²™.

Compac, the leading provider of post-harvest solutions and services to the fresh produce industry, welcomed to its development facility Mr José Octavio Cardona León, Mayor of Manizales, capital of the Caldas department in Colombia.

As pressures grow on packhouse managers to improve throughput, yield and output quality simultaneously, the challenge rests on equipment designers to come up with new solutions to these challenges while maintaining or preferably lowering the operational cost.