U.K.-based packhouse productivity company Marco will provide its equipment to a new facility at Spanish grape grower Moyca's headquarters in the municipality of Totana.

"Our previous Marco pack house installation was a huge success, massively increasing our productivity whilst giving us control over the packing process. Signing with Marco for our new facility was an easy choice to make," said Moyca CEO Enrique Moya Salas.

Marco packhouse equipment

In conversation with www.freshfruitportal.com, Marco business development coordinator Becky Hart discussed how this new equipment would impact Moyca's production.

"The capacity of the equipment depends massively on the quality of the grape,  and whether [the grower] is doing punnets or boxes.

"It is one of the fastest [packhouse equipment] out there, but it really depends on whether the grower has clean grapes, if [it has] to source and quality check, and all those sorts of things.

Hart said this equipment would enable many more growers to potentially punnet their source, rather than box, pack and then ship the boxes to third parties who punnet in another country.

"It should increase a lot of growers' yield from that crop, and it gives them a lot more control so that they're producing identical punnets, which is what suppliers like to recieve, as well as much better presented punnets," she said.

"This technology has had a big impact on all the grape growing regions worldwide over the last few years - it enables more growers to punnet at source.

"It means growers have a full catalogue of declared weights to hand over to retailers and it has massively reduced overpack, which in turn means that the system pays for itself in a matter of months."

From a personal point of view, Hart said the equipment gave growers more visibility of their operation.

"They can see exactly what all their operators are doing: who's packing the most, who's packing the least, who may need some help, etc."

Many growers around the world currently utilize this equipment, including: Sociedad Agricola Santa Ana and Massai Agricultural Services (Chile); Don Ricardo (Peru); Karsten, Tripe D, Dippenaar Choice Farms and Grape Alliance (South Africa); Moyca (Spain); Vale de la Rosa (Portugal); Agrimessina  (Italy); Karsten Farms, Richard Hochfeld, MMUK, DP Packaging and Morrisons (U.K.); Keelings  (Ireland); and Freshtrop (India).

Tomato growers include: Mucci Farms, Windset Farms (Canada/U.S.); Le Jardin de Rabelais, Tomate Jouno, Rougeline Group (France); Eric Wall, Thanet Earth, Glinwell, APS Salads, COrnerways (U.K.); and Alfred Pederson (Denmark).

Other growers include: Special Fruit (Holland); Winterwood Farms (U.K./Poland); International Herbs (Canada); Grupo Siesa (Guatemala); and Vegpro, KHE (Kenya).

The company has been operating for 30 years, and has been exporting this product globally for 15 years.

www.freshfruitportal.com