Based in the heart of California’s Central (San Joaquin) Valley, cultivating 5,000 acres of peaches, plums, and nectarines, the tradition of family farming has been a part of the HMC Farms’ story since 1887. HMC Farms has spent generations innovating their growing and handling practices to ensure that they can reliably provide their customers with the simple pleasure of great tasting fruit.

Durante más de 100 años, desde el nacimiento de la automatización industrial, los ingenieros han soñado con fábricas donde las máquinas realizan tareas de forma autónoma, sin la necesidad de participación humana. Hoy en día, varios pasos del proceso en las operaciones industriales se pueden realizar automáticamente, sin embargo, hay pocas líneas de producción que funcionan realmente así de extremo a extremo.

For more than 100 years since the birth of industrial automation, engineers have dreamed of lights-out factories where machines perform tasks autonomously, without the need for human involvement. Today various process steps in industrial operations can be performed automatically, however there are few production lines that run truly lights-out, end to end.

New Zealanders have a knack for both innovation and pragmatism and it was surely one of the horticultural industry’s greatest marketing coups when in the late 1950s, to boost the fruit’s export market sales, Kiwis renamed the Chinese gooseberry to kiwifruit.

The marketing paid off and both domestic sales and the export success story of the newly branded Kiwifruit are continuing today.

If this is the first time you’ve seen the term ‘packhouse 4.0’ it certainly won’t be the last. The fresh produce industry is poised on the brink of evolution and digital transformation is the facilitator.

But what does a packhouse 4.0 look like? Where does the term come from? And why should we care?

If it isn’t already, ‘digital transformation of the packhouse’ will become a very familiar term over the coming years. It’s going to herald an exciting new era for an industry responsible for sustaining more people than ever before. It will also drive more opportunities for revenue streams with better use of data.

When you think industry leading, high-tech innovation, the humble potato may not be the first thing that comes to mind. However, the seeds of change have been sewn in the South Australian Potato Market and we are now witnessing the fruits of that harvest.

No matter where I travel, I am always amazed by the passion and pride that growers and distributors take in their work. Their goal is simple, to grow and distribute the best possible produce with which to delight their customers.