A technological evolution program developed in 2021 and under construction in this 2022 sees Agrimola spa engaged. “The goal – explains the CEO of the company Luca Sassi – is to ensure a higher quality standard of the fruit produced by the company”. A quality standard that can guarantee customers a product that is easier to work with and with a minimum percentage of impurities.
But what do these interventions foresee?
First of all it must be said that the cornerstones of these interventions are five and concern the pitting of peaches and apricots, an optical selector for external defects and foreign bodies in frozen fruit, a new line of aseptic treatment of fruit puree and an update in the process of packaging of natural purees.
New line for pitting peaches
This line allows to peel whole peaches with the superficial steam. This is ideal for the production of organic product, as it guarantees and allows to work without the use of any chemical treatment. In addition, thanks to a rigorous computerized control of the line, with water transport to avoid damage to the fruit, we take the peaches to a pitting machine of the latest generation. This orients the product to limit the risk of stone breaking, reducing the risk of formation of small but dangerous splinters. The new equipment allows to manage this line with an advanced technology control system continuously monitored through the supervision system.
New apricot stoning line
Starting from the next harvest, apricot stoning will be managed by a new machine that will allow to optimize the product management by integrating this line into the company supervision system. Also in this case, after cutting the fruit in half, the transfer to the subsequent freezing phases is managed by means of water transport.
Optical sorter to sort frozen fruit
In a specific air-conditioned environment we have installed, and it is currently being optimized, an optical sorter that allows to sort frozen fruit eliminating external defects and foreign bodies. This is made possible by the machine’s ability to read the surface of the product by color, shape and size. This sorting line was installed during 2021 and will be operational from the 2022 season.
New aseptic fruit treatment line
The design has been completed and a new line for the aseptic treatment of fruit puree is now under construction aseptic treatment of fruit puree. This line, in addition to the quantitative potentialities that it will express, has been conceived and designed to overcome the limits of the current purees. The aim is to obtain a product with a larger grain size. It will be possible to have a puree with cubes or pieces of fruit inside it up to a size of 10x10x10 mm. This has been made possible thanks to the change of the pasteurization/sterilization system from plates to tubes. This has made it possible to “improve product characteristics in line with new trends in the food industry”. It will also be possible to optimize the controlled and computerized management of the entire production process, in line with what has already been done for other production processes that have been renewed or are being renewed.
New packaging process for natural purees
Always remaining in the line of natural purees, the packaging process has been updated. In addition to the traditional 200lt drums (Bag in drum) and/or 20.000lt tanks for the bulk
bulk product, from June, it will also be possible to pack aseptically in 1.000lt containers (Bag in bins), and in 10lt, 5lt and 3lt containers, always in aseptic packaging (Bag in Box).
Also this new packaging system will be controlled and managed through the supervision process to ensure food safety and traceability of processes.
