By Natasha Fujimoto
A PARAGON of agricultural innovation, Geoffrey Thompson Holdings’ FruitCo in Mooroopna is set to process a staggering 650,000 bins of fruit annually by 2030.
A $55M state-of-the-art sorting and packing facility built upon the 100-year-old site of the famed Ardmona Cannery, FruitCo uses automation and software developed and installed by multinational engineering company, MAF Roda Agrobotic.
With the ability to decrease processing costs to just 32c per kilogram, MAF’s integrated technology grades fruit into bins, to ensure the highest value usage using electronic sensors and highly sophisticated software.
Testing for strict market requirements, fruit is sorted according to weight, colour, shape and sugar content as well as being analysed exhaustively for defects. Once categorised, fruit is directed into flumes, filling bins for storage.
The 5,000-bin capacity, temperature and atmosphere controlled cold storage features a 35m tall, automated storage retrieval system (ASRRS) recalling any bin from the vast stack promptly, sending fruit on its way to be packed by robotic arms via both the autonomous and semi-autonomous packing lines.
Officially opened in January this year, and building to full capacity, FruitCo is expected to process 200,000 bins of fruit alone in its first 12 months, near doubling the 107,000 bins achieved in 2021 and will eventually incorporate three lines of fruit; apples, pears and stone fruit.
At heart an exporter, 75-year-old Geoffrey Thompson Holdings’ new facility will foster new global opportunities, with its embedded efficiencies making it more competitive than ever before.
FruitCo’s competitive prowess, also signals good news for regional growers, as Geoffrey Thompson director and board chairman, Robert Bryant said, “While we will look to the whole of Australia to meet our growing demand, it will be the Goulburn Valley that will be our main source of fruit.
“As it is now, fruit is going out of the GV to processors elsewhere and there are transport costs involved in that, which is unnecessary. Eventually we will be able to cater for all the fruit in the GV if growers want to supply it and we will bring fruit in as well.”
On track to reaching its ‘grand and audacious’ 2030 target, as Mr Bryant calls it, FruitCo is continuing to fine-tune its technical software, calibrating the lines to suit the specificities and realities of the Australian market.
Having already modified the lines to suit ever changing regulations, technical director and MAF Agrobotics engineer Nicholas de Chacaton said, “We are continuously working to make the technical software on the site more efficient.
“We are learning, and we are providing solutions to real world demands and the system is having to be modified to take into account the complexity of the modern agricultural world.
“The Australian market is attending to some very complex agricultural activity-with restrictions and on chemicals, HR and food safety but our lines are flexible and highly responsive to the market.”
