Page 40 - Packaging News Magazine July-August 2018

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CASE STUDY MATERIALS HANDLING www.packagingnews.com.au July-August 2018
Fruits of success
A new grading, packing and palletising system is helping one of Australia’s largest citrus packers manage a mandarin boom, writes Amanda Bryan.
S INTERNATIONAL demand for manda- rins grows, Australia’s largest packer and exporter of fresh cit- rus, Mildura Fruit Company (MFC), has reinvented its entire grading and packing process for
the soft and easy to peel citrus fruit.
The company, which began over 100 years ago as a grower-owned cooperative called Mildura Co-operative Fruit Company, is
now part of the Manassen Foods Group.
In addition to mandarins, MFC sources oranges, avocados, lemons, limes and grapefruit from growers in the Mildura re- gion, and sells these to domestic and ex-
port markets.
The fruit comes from more than 100
growers, and MFC exports 75 per cent of the fruit. One of the highest growing cate- gories in its portfolio, however, is the man- darin, with local growers rising up to meet increased global demand by planting more mandarin trees.
MFC operates two main lines in its facil- ity, one for oranges and grapefruit, the oth- er for mandarins and lemons
Major extensions were made in 2002, but two years ago, it became clear that the line that processed mandarins was close to full capacity.
“With the increased mandarin produc- tion coming at us, we decided we needed to upgrade our facility,” MFC general manager Perry Hill says.
“Our existing system was close to capac- ity, and it also had an inefficient set up, so we asked potential suppliers to help with our initial analysis.”
A NEW VISION
One of these suppliers was Process Part- ners, an Australian Engineering Group that designs, builds and optimises food process- ing and packaging plants.
“Our initial role was to complete a re- view of the proposed project, assess viabil- ity and formalise scope and budgets,” Pro- cess Partners senior packaging engineer Craig Gilbert says.