Maintaining service levels and quality efficiently remains one of the main challenges facing fresh produce packing facilities.
For Abella Fruits, a family-owned company specialising in fruit exports and sales, these two factors form the foundation of its business.
Against this backdrop, automation is playing an increasingly important role in its production strategy. The objective is clear: to improve efficiency and gain greater control over costs, at a time when the demands placed on fresh produce companies continue to increase.
“The decision to move towards more automated processes also reflects a reality that the company has observed in recent years,” says Xavier Seró, CEO of Abella Fruits.
“Year after year, our costs were increasing and our targets were becoming increasingly difficult to achieve. If we add the labour shortages of recent years to this, the conclusion is clear.”
This transformation should not be viewed solely from a productivity perspective. For a family-owned company such as Abella Fruits, consistency and the final presentation of the product are fundamental elements of its value proposition and form part of its identity in the eyes of customers.
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The company believes that automation will continue to advance progressively throughout the sector and stresses the importance of technology companies continuing to invest in the different stages of the agri-food process.
“I hope automation continues to evolve steadily. It is essential for technology companies in the sector to invest in the different processes of the agri-food industry, as Sorma Group is doing.”
This evolution begins even before packaging. Abella Fruits also highlights the advances made in vision and grading technologies, which are capable of efficiently separating different product quality grades and subsequently facilitating the automation of different packing formats.
The need to automate processes is not limited to stone fruit. During citrus seasons, when high throughput and the need to maintain consistent operating speeds are particularly important, automated tray packing can also deliver benefits in terms of efficiency, consistency and reduced reliance on labour.
P&P-800 | Automated tray packing
As part of this technological evolution, Sorma Group has developed the P&P-800, a Pick & Place solution designed to automate the placement of fruit into trays, adaptable to different products and formats, including citrus applications.
The machine combines vision systems with Sormatech-AI technology to identify the product and packaging configuration, manage automatic placement and orient the fruit to achieve a consistent presentation.
Furthermore, by automating an operation that has traditionally been labour-intensive, the P&P-800 can free up as many as 7–8 workers per shift, depending on the product, format and production conditions, helping to reduce reliance on labour and improve operational efficiency.
Its flexibility enables the system to be adapted to different seasons and types of fruit, facilitating its integration into both stone fruit lines and citrus packing facilities.
Up to 7–8 workers per shift · Citrus applications · Intelligent vision · Automatic placement and orientation
