Over the years, Swiss company Visar Sorting Sarl has made a name for itself in the international potato and vegetable industry with its advanced optical sorting lines. Despite the pandemic and war-related crises, optical sorting technology continues to gain in importance, as Visar CEO Daniel Pitton tells us on the eve of Potato Europa, the world's leading trade show in the potato sector.
Daniel Pitton (right) together with his son (left) and an employee at Fruit Logistica 2023.
Rising wages and a shortage of qualified personnel also pose major challenges for the potato industry, observes Pitton. "Packers are looking at new solutions and are all ready to invest to replace and automate manual potato sorting. The high throughput and unique working accuracy of our machines make it possible to automate quality grading while increasing the yield of the graded lots and, consequently, the revenue in the grading department."
Simple installation, low operating costs
Despite the high level of investment and innovation, many companies try to avoid extensive new construction and keep costs as low as possible. As a supplier to the industry, Visar Sorting Sarl is now faced with the task of meeting these requirements. According to Pitton, "We have recently installed Sortop Potatoes graders to complete the grading of already calibrated and sometimes pre-sorted potatoes. Manual sorting will be completely eliminated and the existing large equipment will remain in place. In this case, the installation of the machines is particularly simple and the final operating costs are very low." Furthermore, Visar grading lines are quite compact and cost-effective compared to the competition and are also suitable for smaller volumes of washed and unwashed potatoes, from 5 to 10 to/h, he said.
In addition to potatoes, the Visar brand name is also gaining traction in the vegetable sector. "Grading of parsnips and parsley roots is already possible and grading of de-stemmed red radishes would also be conceivable. Furthermore, we have now developed a larger plant with thicker products such as Russet potatoes weighing up to over 1kg can be sorted without any problems. We believe that this machine would also be suitable for sorting sweet potatoes," explains Pitton.
This year, a machine will be on display at the Visar booth for short demonstrations.
Potato Europe as an indispensable trade show event
This year, the Swiss company is once again exhibiting at Potato Europe, Europe's leading trade fair for the potato industry. The trade fair is extremely important for acquiring new customers as well as maintaining existing ones, Pitton emphasizes. "We have the advantage here that our range of services specializes in particular in the sorting and calibration of brushed, washed or peeled potatoes, while many manufacturers mainly offer solutions for coarse presorting. At the show, growers who supply the local market, seed potato producers, industrial packers, as well as cooperatives, all of which are among our potential customers, will gather information. Accordingly, Potato Europe is the right place for us to talk to these people and inform them about the performance of our sorter."
Visit the company at Potato Europe: booth T96.
For more information:
Daniel Pitton
Visar Sorting Sarl
La Tuilière 8
CH-1047 Oppens
info@visar-sorting.com
Phone: +41 21 887 03 01
info@visar-sorting.com
www.visar-sorting.com