Wijnen Square Crops aims to produce top-quality peppers using modern techniques. Harvest House and its member company from Grubbenvorst invested in Gearbox's EasyX on the existing sorting line to ensure quality and save labor. Operations manager Charles Stax sees benefits: "We can deliver consistent quality with significantly fewer people."
Wijnen Square Crops grew from 32 hectares to 40 hectares of peppers last year, a 25 percent expansion. "We want to maintain continuous capacity and supply peppers according to customer specifications and of high quality," Charles says. "Previously, we had six to twelve employees at the unloading belt; now we no longer need people there. An average of 300,000 to 550,000 kilograms of peppers a week passes over the sorting line here, and those processes have to run optimally. The EasyX photographs every pepper on the belt: it detects every deviation on the fruit. A human eye can't compete with that. Moreover, it generates a huge amount of data, which we can use to improve quality."
Promising sounds
The Limburg pepper farm is affiliated with Harvest House. There, Wijnen Square Crops' management heard promising reports about the system already installed at fellow grower Vijverberg in 2022. Wijnen Square Crops contacted Pliant, which merged with Gearbox late last year. "The pepper season runs from March to November, and there was room this season to upgrade one more existing sorting line. The management immediately said: that's what we want," Charles says. "We now save quite a lot on the total number of sorting hours. This is mainly because we no longer need people at the picking belt; the peppers are now automatically assessed for quality."
Experiences with the system have been positive, says Charles. "The system takes several photos of the pepper. From these, you can select defects that you want to qualify as second type, such as shape, buttspot, or knife cut, among others. The camera sees even the smallest scratch on the fruit, which is missed by the human eye. You have to learn to work with that, by setting your own boundaries of what is and is not acceptable to the market." Pliant and Gearbox set these limits jointly with the customer to have a working system as soon as possible.
Handling damage
Apart from quality benefits and labor savings, the EasyX also generates a lot of data, which can be used in other ways in the organization. Suppose a lot of handling damage is found in a particular batch of peppers, such as butt marks or cut damage, Charles gives as an example. "Now, because of the data, you can see exactly where the damage occurred and look together at how things can be improved to take the quality to an even higher level."
Wijnen Square Crops constantly strives to deliver a high-quality product. Harvest House growers want to grow high-quality fruiting vegetables, and in order to do so, they have to meet the cooperative's quality requirements, Charles said. Peppers that do not meet the requirements are sold as a second variety, for example, to the slicer. These peppers are already singled out at the sorting belt by the EasyX and kept apart. "Harvest House has outlets for almost all peppers," says the operations manager.
Another advantage of the system is that an infestation can be detected at an early stage. "The camera immediately sees if there is a small spot of aphids, spider mites, or thrips on the fruit. Using this data, we can find out in which department those peppers were harvested, so we can intervene faster to control the pest."
Grading reports
Charles is pleased with the collaboration with Pliant and Gearbox. The nursery received on-site explanations about the EasyX and a number of things were adjusted that were not standard in the program, he says. "Pliant and Gearbox are constantly working on improvements to the system. If we run into anything, we are helped immediately. Because the EasyX generates so much data, we wanted to have a sorting report per greenhouse, per day, per week. That was not yet available, but they started working on it immediately. We also came across anomalies that were not yet in the system. We are constantly working together to optimize the system."
You can read more about EasyXhere.
For more information:
Wijnen Square Crops
Tel: +31 (0)77 358 67 79
[email protected]
www.square-crops.com