Bright Light Agribusiness installs 15 brand new sorters

Australia

Thursday 13 December 2018

Operator friendliness was another decisive factor in selecting TOMRA. It was important that the sorting process could work with minimal human interaction because access to skilled labor is a challenge due to the seasonality of the work and remoteness of the growing area.

Bright Light Agribusiness has selected TOMRA Food as its partner for an end-to-end almond sorting solution. A total of 15 sorters will be installed at the company’s state-of-the-art almond processing facility in Hattah/Victoria to achieve the processing objective of a “pack-to-grade” quality in a single pass.

Tim Orr, Operations Manager at Bright Light Agribusiness, explained: “We are now at a stage of orchard maturity where investing in our own processing capabilities is justified. Also, we will be ready to handle future volumes as the younger trees develop. The new operations are anticipated to be fully ready for the 2020 season with an annual throughput of 25.000 tons”.

“At Bright Light, we pride ourselves on high quality products and exceeding our customers’ expectations. We think longer-term and consequently we went through a rigorous process to select our preferred option from the different sorting solutions out there. By using TOMRA’s expertise, the concept that we have put together with our project coordinator, PASS, will deliver us a pack-out product with the least amount of human interaction and reprocessing, which is traditionally required to make grade. A total of 15 sorters, amongst other mechanical and pneumatic cleaning arrangements, will be installed to achieve this objective.”

Tim Orr said: “TOMRA’s BSI+ technology made the difference. Especially TOMRA’s ability to target insect damage – not only major damage, but also the pinhole carpophilus-beetle bites – which was a real eye-opener. And with TOMRA already using such technology in Australia during the 2018 season, we were able to combine laboratory testing with real field data. The BSI+ technology also delivered outstanding results on other, often challenging almond defects such as doubles, gummy-nuts, immature, molded, and stains.”

Simon Murphy Sales and Marketing Manager at Bright Light Agribusiness comments that the concept of the multiple sorters was also a result of TOMRA’s global and local applications expertise.

About Bright Light Agribusiness
Bright Light Agribusiness is one of the largest almond growers in Australia, with orchards in various locations throughout the Sunraysia region. Company grows almonds with the latest irrigation infrastructure and technologies and has orchards that contain trees ranging in age from recently planted through to full maturity.The almond varieties grown include Nonpareil, Carmel, Monterey and Price. Bright Light Agribusiness is an accredited marketer of Australian almonds and exports almonds worldwide to all the major markets.

About TOMRA Food
TOMRA Food designs and manufactures sensor-based sorting machines and integrated post-harvest solutions for the food industry, using the world’s most advanced grading, sorting, peeling and analytical technology.
Over 8,000 units are installed at food growers, packers and processors around the world for fruits, nuts, vegetables, potato products, grains and seeds, dried fruit etc.

For contact:
https://www.tomra.com/en/sorting/food
http://www.compacsort.com/
Roberto Ricci
GM & VP Europe
Roberto.Ricci@tomra.com
+39 335 1224955

For Bright Light Agribusiness
Simon Murphy
Sales & marketing Manager
+61 3 9674 8188
sales@brightlightagri.com
www.brightlightagri.com