How many times have you gone to the super market, and purchased a peach or nectarines, only to find out that they are as hard as a rock and have zero taste?  I have done it only a handful of times, and I think the last time I tried to purchase one from a super market was probably 10 years ago ( though I must admit I am spoiled as we have peach trees at home and I know what a good peach should taste like ).  People purchase fruit as a treat, something special, just like candy, chips or ice cream, and if it doesn’t taste good no matter what the price is, they wont be bothered to purchase it.  One of the main reasons the fruit is sold like this is for shelf life and to prevent bruising, as the harder fruit is less likely to bruise.  In order to bring riper fruit to the market, there needs to be as little handling of the fruit as possible.

Munckhof Manufacturing has been working on a machine to allow farmers to pack fruit in the orchard, particularly for peaches.  How the machine works is it is a three wheeled self prepelled machine that keeps itself moving slowly and centered down the row.  Workers on the ground directly infront of the machine pick all the fruit half way up the machine and place them on a conveyor belt  which is movable to which ever location is benificial to them.  Workers standing on the machine then pick all the remaining fruit on the top half of the tree.  All the fruit makes its way onto a central conveyor belt where a few workers sort and package the peaches.  The packaged peaches then get placed on a pallet that is on a trailer pulled along behind the machine.  Once the pallet is filled it is simply lowered to the ground so that a forklift can come pick it up and place it into a reefer truck.  Once the reefer truck is full it is ready to go off to market.  What this machine allows farmers to do is pick, sort and pack the product with as little handling as possible.  Because the sorting is done in the field there is no need for a packing facility.  And most importantly because there is less handling of the fruit there are fewer culls.  The possibility to produce riper peaches without damaging the fruit is achieved.

CHBC News did a piece on the peach packing machine, which you can see by clicking the link below.

Check out the video here!!