Fresh Fruit Service has been buying and selling blueberries, apples, and pears since 2004. This family business from the Grójec area works with both conventional and organic fruit. FFS sources blueberries from local growers and exports them to various European and Asian countries, continuously expanding its market reach.
Fresh Fruit Service trades in blueberries sourced from producers, working with around 150 suppliers in the region on an ongoing basis. With a purchasing volume of approx. 2,000 tons of blueberries per season and such a diverse grower portfolio, maintaining consistent quality was a significant challenge for this client. Quality returns were effectively eating into the business’s margins. Additionally, without in-house sorting at their own packhouse, the company was losing money on blueberries that did not meet buyers’ quality requirements.
The remedy for the low level of quality control over fruit sourced from growers was a sorting line with an MXM BN.2 blueberry sorter, conveyors, and a box filler. Our optical blueberry sorter, the key machine in this line, assesses fruit across three categories (size, colour, softness), operating at a capacity of up to 3 tons per hour. A tailored conveyor system ensures smooth fruit flow through the line, while the automatic box filler efficiently fills larger cardboard packaging and prevents overweighing.
Before the client decided to work with our blueberry sorting line, fruit quality control was carried out manually. This stage of production took more time, generated labour costs, and was characterised by low effectiveness. Following the implementation of the line with the MXM BN.2 sorter, the company reduced its return rate by 20%. Better quality control through the sorting line also motivates blueberry suppliers, who now manage fruit quality more carefully themselves — because they do not want to be charged for fruit that fails to meet the required criteria.
After the first season working with the sorting line, I can confidently say it is a solution we had been missing in previous years. Thanks to the MXM BN.2 optical sorter, we significantly reduced our return rate. As a result, we are more credible in the eyes of our buyers and can count on new orders. We sell the sorted-out blueberries for processing, which helps improve the company’s financial result. What matters to me is that Milbor PMC designed the line to our expectations — we got exactly what we needed this season. We are already in talks about further investments and expanding the existing infrastructure. New machines will allow us to develop our offer and sell blueberries in new packaging formats. Our experience with Milbor PMC’s service has been positive — summarises Marta Hermanowicz.
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