Packing soft fruits – like strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries – faces some typical difficulties that many producers and packaging companies struggle to overcome. Time to analyse the three main problems with soft fruit packing and find the solutions that make the business easier to manage, as well as more profitable.
Labour shortages and workforce reliability
A vital issue in the soft fruit sector is the shortage of available and eager workers. Many companies report difficulties in hiring due to the monotonous nature of the work and tough environmental conditions, such as long hours in cold storage areas. Even rising wages across Europe do not convince people to apply for a job and treat it seriously. Additionally, when employees do come from outside Europe, challenges such as language barriers and inconsistent work quality drain productivity.
Solution:
The Libra software monitors workers' performance and reports the results automatically to a manager. Monitored employees tend to work faster and more accurately; thus, you can focus on cooperation with the most skilled and engaged people who can deliver the same job as a bigger, but demotivated team.
Overpacking and product losses
Facing an overpacking issue is a nightmare for many companies dealing with soft fruits. Even a few extra grams in each package, especially expensive products such as raspberries or strawberries, can lead to significant losses across a season. With the high market value of soft fruits, this margin for error becomes unsustainable.
Solution: Dynamic lines and manual lines equipped with tailored workstations integrated with advanced scales featuring signals provide the top level of weighing accuracy. The scales show immediately the actual weight of the package and, using colour lights, inform the workers if the punnet is overpacked or underpacked. The workstations combined with Libra software helped our clients to save up to €70 000 per season thanks to reducing overweight.
Tight fulfilment deadlines
Big players, such as retail chains, often place orders at the last minute, forcing pack houses to work under intense time pressure. Declining such orders can damage business, so many packing companies do their best to fulfil the expectations at any cost. Things get messy if your line is not adaptable for quick changeovers and automatic reconfigurations.
Solution:
Here comes both aforementioned items designed by Milbor PMC. The Libra software paired with a dedicated manual/dynamic line enables quick changeovers and an automated taring process, reducing the risk of errors and delays. The system lets the line manager save default orders and activate them when needed. In other words, the whole line is ready for packing and your staff know the order specificity with a single click. Simple as that.
Talking about your soft fruit packing challenges
Milbor PMC combines deep expertise with hands-on experience in soft fruit packing. Backed with 13 years of experience in the fruit packing sector, we created our own systems, including the Libra software and manual/dynamic weighing lines, that solve the issues that our clients struggle with.
If you are interested in the details of our offer dedicated to companies dealing with soft fruits, do not hesitate to contact me directly. I would be more than happy to answer your questions, give you the prices and lead times, as well as calculate ROI for your project.
For more information:
Maciej Chmielewski
Milbor
Tel: +48 538 359 172
Email: [email protected]
www.milbor.pl