The new Fam Centris veggie slicer and peeler, which was to go on show for the first time at foodpro, is unfortunately still in transit, but the news wasn’t all bad for its local agent, Summit Machinery.
The Dofra Onion Peeler, which is also new to Australia, did make it to the show and Summit sold its very first one to a local processor on its stand yesterday.
The machine uses patented ‘super magnetism’ technology, which means 62 per cent fewer components, and as a result significantly reduced maintenance time, than current products, according to its maker.
“It’s a big step forward,” says Frank Verschuren, a director of Dutch company Dofra Foodtec who was on the Summit stand yesterday. “The existing products on the market have lots of maintenance problems,” he says.
According to Verschuren, when it came to topping and tailing, the machine could also manage a greater range of onion sizes than existing products, resulting in a higher yield for processors.
BBC Technologies, a company that started life as a New Zealand blueberry farmer and then diversified into blueberry equipment supplies, has also experienced sales success at foodpro.
The company’s sales and marketing manager, Jason Walker. says he’s been very pleased with the response from visitors so far at the four-day event, which has already resulted in a number of sales leads for the company.
BBC has recently expanded its expertise to the cherry industry with the new Mira360 vision-based cherry sorter, which it is promoting at the show.
According to Walker, the Mira-360 is suitable for large growers and also provides a more affordable vision-based sorting system for smaller growers.
It uses five cameras operating at 50 frames per second, and it can size fruit into numerous bands or remove defective fruit, including those with cracks and splits, defect and spurs, soft rot, wrinkles and bruises and insect damage.
Walker says the company still operates a large blueberry farm in New Zealand, but its equipment, which now sells in 25 countries, is the fastest growing part of the business.
