Compac Sorting Equipment hosts New Zealand’s Prime Minister

A couple of weeks ago Compac Sorting Equipment hosted New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce. The visit toured Compac’s facilities before proceeding to the floor of the Compac factory to make the announcement of a significant investment by the government into R&D research for New Zealand’s export and manufacturing sectors where the government plans to invest $166 million over the next four years into a newly created Advanced Technology Institute which will partner with companies like Compac to commercialise innovation for key export areas such as agri-business.

Compac founder Hamish Kennedy and Compac’s chairman welcome the Prime Minister and other guests

During the tour Compac showed off its world leading InVision 9000 blemish grading system which takes up to 80 images of each piece of fruit as it sorts it based on its size, shape, colour and external blemishes. The InVision 9000 system is one of the key elements in Compac’s largest ever project; Paramount Citrus. Based in Delano, California the new sorting and packing line will sort around 30 million mandarins a day with InVision 9000. It will also track the fruit across the Compac system providing traceability information to the packing facility’s ERP systems.

Time lapse of the installation at Paramount Citrus

During the announcement the Prime Minister described Compac as “one of our most innovative manufacturers” and praised the company’s recent success in winning both Hi-Tech Exporter of the Year and overall Hi-Tech Company of the Year at the New Zealand Hi-Tech awards. He went on to praise Compac as “having worked hard for their success, and critically they have been prepared to innovate and to invest in developing and using cutting-edge technology”.

The Prime Minister and Minister of Science & Innovation learning about Compac’s
InVision 9000 blemish sorting system

Giving reaction to the Prime Minister’s announcement Compac’s head of R&D, Nigel Beach said, “Anything that helps build the capability of New Zealand exporters is always progress, this will increase our capacity for R&D and help us deliver better sorting & packing solutions to our customers”.

For more information:
Nathan Soich
Compac
Tel: +64 9 929 2511
Mob: +64 21 177 4496
Email: [email protected]
Skype: nathan.soich
www.compacsort.com