How we pack mandarins | Tree to Table Vlog

If you’ve ever looked for mandarins at the supermarket, chances are you’ve seen them available as a prepack in a mesh bag. But have you ever wondered how mandarins get into the mesh bags in the first place? In the first of our Tree to Table Vlog series, Red Rich Fruits’ MD Matt and GM Dwayne demonstrate how we pack mandarins.

Red Rich Fruits (NSW) Managing Director Matt Palise and General Manager Dwayne Millard demonstrate how we pack mandarins.

How we pack mandarins: a three-step process

The packing process involves three key aspects: the final check, creating the bag weight, and packing the bags. This all occurs using two major pieces of equipment. The Duro PEG12 is responsible for weighing the fruit, while two Sorma CBRs fill and seal the final bags.

The final check

At Red Rich Fruits, we sort and grade our mandarins on our orchards in Gayndah, before shipping them in large produce bins to our warehouse for packing. On arrival, a fully-automated bin tipper delivers the fruit onto a conveyor belt, which feeds onto sorting rollers. Although our on-farm sorting and grading process is rigorous, a final quality check of the fruit ensures that only the best mandarins make it into the pack. Two to three staff members perform this final check as the fruit passes over the sorting rollers and into the incline to the top of the Duro PEG12.

Creating the bag weight

Before fruit can be bagged, it must first be weighed and the pack-weight created to ensure that each bag weighs the same. Once the fruit enters the Duro PEG12, the machine sifts each piece through a 12-lane, 12-weigh-head system to create small batches of fruit. When each batch reaches its intended weight, it is sent through to the Sorma CBR for bagging.

The user interface on the PEG12 shows a simplified version of the machine’s setup.

Packing the bags

The final step in the bagging process is the actual packing of the bags. The PEG12 sends each batch of mandarins through to one of two Sorma CBRs, which insert the batch into their mesh bags and seal them, at a rate of 22 bags per minute. From here they exit the machine, where they are packed in crates ready to be shipped to the supermarket.

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