Compac launches Spectrim™ retrofits for competitor packing lines

Compac launches Spectrum retrofits for competitor packing lines

PRESS RELEASE – December 7, 2016 Compac is set to retrofit Spectrim™ optical fruit grading platform on competitor machinery following its world-wide product success.

Compac’s grading platform Spectrim has been established as the world’s best produce grading platform. Launched a year ago, the huge demand from packhouses across the globe has seen Compac’s new 11,000m² Auckland headquarters being fully utilized, with nearly 500 lanes already sold across USA, New Zealand, Australia, Europe, South Africa, South America and China.

Compac’s pipeline looks strong with apple, citrus, avocado, stonefruit and kiwifruit packhouses upgrading from Compac’s previous InVision system and packhouses who aren’t currently Compac customers, looking to retrofit their packing lines.

Perry Sansom, Compac VP of Marketing & Product comments on their strong revenue growth, “Initial adoption of Spectrim has significantly exceeded our forecast. Last year’s financial results saw Compac grow revenues by over 40%. Since we launched Spectrim, we are on track to sell 75% more lanes of blemish grading than the previous twelve months.”

"Spectrim leads the market and supports Compac's positioning to offer integrated solutions to customers based on core technology, that is second to none. We can aggregate high-value yield data with other sources, to provide rich insights into the fresh produce supply chain."

Spectrim detects the quality of produce by taking up to 500 high definition images of each piece of fruit that passes over the sorter. This detects the hardest to find external blemishes, and delivers the unrivaled grading accuracy and consistency that packhouses require to ensure the highest return from their crop.

Excess demand for Spectrim from non-Compac packhouses has seen Compac dedicate a team to making the platform widely available on competitor sorters.

“The launch of our Spectrim retrofit product onto competitors’ machines has absolutely been driven by market demand, as they look to lift the performance of their non-Compac sorters,” says Sansom.

Retrofits are ideal for packhouses looking to increase their competitive advantage through utilizing cutting-edge technology, but have existing equipment that has not yet reached the end of its life. This upgrade gives access to latest advancements in blemish grading without packhouses having to replace their complete line. This is particularly attractive as blemish grading is where the most advancements are being made and packhouses get the most value.

Retrofits are not a new strategy for Compac, in 2014 they retrofitted Booth Ranches to give them access to their inspection technology. Scott Carlisle, Food Safety Coordinator at Booth Ranches says their retrofit “allowed us to use a lot of the mechanical hardware from our previous grading equipment. They simply came in and upgraded the software and the cameras and lighting ability so it’s able to see these different visual defects that maybe we weren’t seeing, with our previous sorting equipment.”

In late 2015 Washington Fruit was Compac’s first customer to have Spectrim installed in their apple packhouse. Spectrim’s high performance hardware and new machine learning algorithms accurately and repeatedly put the right fruit in the right box, ensuring consistency and quality every time. They are also experiencing reduced cost-per-pack and increased pack-out, resulting in lower overheads and greater revenue for their businesses.

Mikey Hanks from Washington Fruit describes their experience with Spectrim, “Since Spectrim, we’ve needed a smaller crew to run the line efficiently - a typical shift had 16 people sorting and now a typical shift has nobody sorting and we’re also able to run faster. It was not long into packing with this system that we were able to pull the sorters off the line and have the same consistent grade.”

Andrew McQueen, Product Manager at Compac explains how Spectrim has been designed as a platform, “Spectrim was built from the ground up with one thing in mind – to be the most powerful optical sorting platform ever offered to the industry. It’s also future proofed, with the platform designed to allow customers to continuously update their system hardware while receiving frequent software updates to keep them at the cutting edge.”

Titan Farm’s, Ross Williams, Director of Packing shows his optimism and enthusiasm for their Spectrim installation, “For Titan Farms and the industry as a whole, I believe the future is bright. Considering the vast potential of this grading platform, the sky is the limit. I believe Compac will continue to improve upon, and develop, new solutions that will continue to increase efficiencies and reduce costs, in order to help make us better packers and provide our customers with the highest quality fruit possible.”

For more information on Compac retrofits you can go to www.compacsort.com/retrofit. Compac will be presenting its Spectrim platform at Fruit Logistica in Berlin, Germany from February 8-10 and will be located at Hall 5.1.

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About Compac

Compac provides integrated post-harvest solutions and services to the global fresh produce industry. The company’s mission is to enable its customers improve returns, gain operational efficiencies, and ensure a safe food supply via the application of smart, useable technologies. To achieve this Compac operates a number of centers of excellence, regional offices and manufacturing locations within the United States, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa and Australasia.