FoodTrust - Connections

This will be the first in a series about the Visser farm, and their newest machinery acquisition.

The Visser’s recently acquired a new potato grading/sizing machine from Grimme Technica, leaders in potato handling systems. We are using our SmartSpud to help them tuned it up. About a week ago William told me it was going to be running that day. Since I was going to be in the area anyway I thought I’d pop over and check it out.

The whole system is quite an impressive sight. It fills most of the space in their parking lot when it is assembled to operate. At the left of the picture is the RH Combi unit. This post will focus on that unit and its purpose.

The Combi unit accepts the potatoes as they are dumped from the truck. It has a huge capacity (wish I knew how many pounds per hour it can process, but I don’t at the moment). The dirt and rocks are separated, each taking a separate path out of the machine to be dumped into trucks. The potatoes then pass the human component of the process. Six people were watching the line, picking out stray debris and bad potatoes as they whizzed by.

After the human inspectors the potatoes pass over a rubber mesh that performs the first in a series of size separations. Potatoes too large to fit through the mesh go one way, everything else went in the other direction.

What does this mean for you? Well, to begin with the machine is built to reduce mechanical damage, like bruising, to the potatoes. We are further reducing damage by tuning the machine using the SmartSpud to identify problem areas. We are continually raising the bar on quality and this is one way we are able to do that.

The next steps in the process will be topics for future post.

I happened to have a video camera with me. Windows Movie Maker is a wonderful little program.

Scott

Last time I showed you a picture of a couple guys looking at a high tech device called a Smart Spud. Behind them was a machine for grading potatoes that used a lot of steel where potatoes can easily get bruised. This time I’ll tell you about some new equipment that one of FoodTrust’s partners is using to hopefully eliminate much of the bruising that happens during grading.

William and Randy Visser (G.W. Visser and Sons) were one of FoodTrust’s first packing partners. They really understand quality. They also know the importance of continually striving to improve quality. When we approached them about partnering on purchasing some new equipment they jumped at the chance.

This new equipment from Grimme, a company in Belgium, is specially designed to minimize impacts to potatoes. The belts are made of rubber and anything that can come into contact with a potato is made to reduce the effect of impact. The equipment shown on the left allows sorting and grading of up to three products.

On the right is a tote box filler. The box, sitting beside the machine, is placed under a chute. The potatoes feed from the first machine onto this one. The chute lowers to reduce the distance a potato must drop into the box. It automatically rises as the box fills up.

As far as we can tell this equipment is the first of its kind in this region. Once it proves itself I’m sure other farms will start using similar equipment. But, it is just one example of how FoodTrust and its partners are on the forefront of technology.

I’ll try to get pictures or video of this equipment in action for a future update.

Scott