Fully automatic cherry sorting line processes up to three tonnes per hour

Stas Belgium recently placed a cherry sorting line for a Swiss growers’ association, which provides the customers need for greater processing capacity. In doing so it became the largest available line in Northwest Europe in one stroke. In order to have added value for the customer, the machine has to have certain features. “All the flooding in recent weeks means quality sorting demands extra attention. At the same time, the machine needs to be able to operate 24-7 during the cherry season. This line combines the best of both,” according to Jan Taks.

“We at Stas represent Australian GP Graders. They supply the machine, we take care of the peripheral equipment. We ‘translate,’ as it were, the Australian concept and shape that into a relatively affordable machine, which fits well into the Northwestern European standard. Our customer, a major Swiss growers’ association, is expected to process about 1,200 tonnes of cherries while the cherry season lasts. Considering our machine has a capacity of three tonnes per hour, operating continually between those eight to nine weeks a year, that is more than enough. Initially it was a bit of a puzzle to have all processes accurately connect to each other, from cutting to transporting the final boxes of the line. Yet I can look back at a quick completion.”

“The machine sorts cherries based on inner and outer qualities of the cherries, but not before they are separated from their stalks,” Taks explains. “Cherries are often supplied in small bunches. We separate the stalks from the cherries using a water cyclone, to loosen them. To be quite certain, the cherries are also guided along the blades. If double ones continue on from there, the circular and saw blades help, they can still be filtered out with those blades.”

After this step, the cherries are sorted by size. “Cherries smaller than 22 mm are removed by guiding them along rotating cylinders. All cherries smaller than that size fall through the gaps. The fruits then also have their leaves removed, so you are left with just the cherries with a bright green stem. After this takes place, the cherries are guided, via water channels, to the fully automatic sorting area.”

“Yet it can occur that a few soft or dented cherries pass the first inspection. This year, a lot of rain fell, which means quality sorting demands extra attention. Ellips from Eindhoven supplied a camera system that fortunately helps, for it constantly registers the cherries’ quality. If a ‘bad’ cherry is discovered, it is guided to a special exit; the sorting machine has 18 exits in total for different kinds of sorting. Occasionally, cherries from different cultivators end up in the same box, but they can always be traced by the barcode on the box.”

“After the camera has done its job, and the wheat is separated from the chaff, the remaining cherries are guided, via tubes with streaming water, to the packing conveyor, which automatically fills packages of various standard sizes, from two to seven kilograms. The central conveyor transports the filled boxes to a conditioned room, where they are placed on pallets, and then our work is done.”