Tomra and Kangfa Food work together to sort peaches and apricots
The first step it identified was to develop close, long-term partnerships with local fruit farmers, who supply fresh and healthy raw fruit. At the same time, Kangfa Food is conscious of the benefits of technological breakthroughs and the company is willing to invest in innovation to constantly improve food quality. This is in a marketplace where consumers’ expectations are steadily rising.
Embracing new technology to improve quality and boost productivity
Historically, Kangfa Food wanted to address some specific issues, such as increasing labor costs, raw material quality variations and insufficient production capacity. TOMRA Sorting Food, a global leader in optical sorting and steam peeling solutions in the food industry, was seen as the solution to the issues which plagued Kangfa Food at that time.
Liu Xincai, CEO of Kangfa Food, said: “We used to own a sorter, but it could no longer cope with the increased volume in our processing lines. Therefore, we decided to look for a solution that could be easily upgraded in line with foreseeable future growth.”
“TOMRA helped us improve the efficiency of our processing line and optimized the sorter’s performance. We also had access to TOMRA’s local service team which provided timely technical support. We don’t have to worry about communication barriers, as is sometimes the case with other imported equipment. Therefore, we are convinced that TOMRA is the right partner for us,” the CEO continued.
One sorter, double the gain - ensuring quality while reducing labor costs
Since its successful installation in June 2016, TOMRA’s Halo sorter has proven to be a versatile and highly-efficient sorting solution, sorting peach and apricot slices, wedges and halves.
The Halo has also increased operational capacity to an hourly output of seven to eight tons - an increase from four to five tons before installation. The sorter has replaced over 70 manual pickers from the peach processing line, which means labor costs have been reduced by 80 percent, while yield has increased by 30 percent.
Furthermore, they state that the Halo sorter has effectively improved the quality of the final product, even while the quality of raw material remains variable. This improvement is achieved by accurately detecting and rejecting pits, pit fragments, blemishes and all types of foreign materials.
The sorter categorizes the peaches into three streams - good products, secondary products and bad/rejected products - based on the size of the blemish area.
Wu Chuansong, deputy general manager of Kangfa Food, responsible for production, said: “Expertise and technical support is available to us around the clock, as TOMRA China has a 24-hour customer service hotline. The local service team is a very important factor in why we chose to work with TOMRA.”
For more information:
Catherine Hechter
Tomra Sorting NV
Tel: +32 16 396 396
tomra.com