Robots to pack kiwifruit at Eastpack
| Author | Carmen Hall |
| Published date | 28 November 2020 |
| Date | 28 November 2020 |
But expense could stand in the way of new technologies replacing thousands of seasonal workers despite an ongoing labour shortage. However, other packhouse evolutions have become game changers as the industry continues to boom.
Chief executive Hamish Simson said in the last five years the company had pumped more than $155m into increased storage capacity at its sites and innovation including automation technology.
And that investment cycle was not complete for New Zealand’s largest post-harvest provider.
“We still have quite a lot to do.”
The growth was driven by escalating kiwifruit volumes bolstered by Zespri’s record global operating revenues of $3.36 billion in 2019-20.
Simson said, for comparison, five years ago Eastpack packed about 25 million trays of kiwifruit and despite the challenges of the pandemic 42 million trays were processed this year and that number could climb to about 45 million trays in 2021.
“So to put it simply you need more infrastructure to handle the fruit. It’s generally around grading, packing, cool chain and coolstore capacity.”
He said Eastpack’s philosophy was if you need to invest anyway “let’s take the opportunity to innovate to invest in state of the art automation”.
“A lot of things we are now bringing on stream did not exist five years ago. So things are moving quite fast.”
The graders were becoming more sophisticated due to camera technology, which meant fewer people were needed to run them. Robots were also operating in the coolstores and controlled atmospheres had become the new norm.
Meanwhile, next year the grader at Washer Rd in Te Puke would take another leap forward with automation and robotics that would put fruit into boxes and onto pallets.
Unfortunately those types of robotics were “very expensive” and difficult because “often you are doing things for the first time”.
Eastpack had taken a steady as you go approach but it would still require 3200 seasonal packers at the peak of the harvest next year and more than half of them would be Kiwis.
“The Bay of Plenty is a really healthy economy and is doing really well...
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