July 16th 2018 saw the opening of the new 18-lane plant equipped with UNITEC Uni 9.0 Pear technology with Pears Sort 3 system to sort different pear grades. It is the first plant in the world highly specialised in pear processing and grading.
David Garcia, president of Diamond Fruit Growers, clarified their reasons: "The Board made a decision to reinvest into the company so that way we are here for the next hundred years. We went out and started taking a look at what was out there for running pears. What new technology was out there. (…) Most of them were involving apple lines that ran pears: they tweaked them enough to run pears on them. UNITEC was one of the only companies that was willing to listen to us, was willing to take the time of saying what they would like to do and was willing to design a line that would handle pears that was meant for pears from start to finish."
With these words, David Garcia, President of Diamond Fruit Growers, clarified very well what made the Company choose UNITEC for such an important project. UNITEC’s will to fully commit to the project from
the very first project stages.
"UNITEC has truly believed in this project and has thus become the first company in the world to build a highly specialised plant for pear processing and grading. When we started this project, we wanted to kind of reinvent the whole process. So we wanted to add into the mechanical world and look for the equipment and it didn’t exist! So we had to find a partner who was willing to work with us, to gamble with us, to get through all the tough times with us, and it fairly quickly became evident that UNITEC had the people and the attitude that we were looking forward forward to partner up with this."
Robert Wymore, Diamond Fruit Growers Operation Manager, therefore confirmed what President Garcia had stated on the reasons behind their decision to entrust UNITEC with the project. For such an important and ambitious project, Diamond needed a highly professional company with strong commitment and engagement and it found a perfect partner in UNITEC.
Behind the results that UNITEC has enabled its Customers to reach year after year there is always the desire to fully commit to projects. Interest, passion, enthusiasm are the added values that UNITEC puts into what it does. Professionalism and continuous innovation are the foundations, but they are not enough if you want to aim at excellence. And the UNITEC team never copped out from the first design phases to the final steps of the production process.
President Garcia underlined that for UNITEC commitment means also reliability in service: "Anything that we saw was a problem, they have fixed it. That has just been outstanding. During the line installation they have been here 24/7 for us."
Also Nick Erickson, Diamond Fruit Growers Project Manager, was impressed by the professional integrity of the UNITEC Team: "They didn’t just say: 'Yeah, that’s what you agreed to'. Sometimes they saw things they didn’t like that we hadn’t even noticed, and they said 'We are gonna make that better'.
And the results of this attitude did not take long to show. Giving the UNITEC Team full satisfaction, the President of Diamond Garcia declared that technological results did not only meet, but even exceeded expectations from all points of view:
Has UNITEC's technology met our expectations? Most definitely.
In fact they have exceeded all our expectations, on every aspect of it.
The throughput has exceeded our expectation, the consistency of the grading process has exceeded our expectation, the consistency of the sizing has exceeded our expectation, their professionalism exceeded our expectation. There hasn't been one aspect of dealing with UNITEC that hasn't exceeded our expectations.
The Pears Sort 3 system, with which Uni 9.0 Pear is equipped, is true state-of-the-art technology: it sorts the different pear classes with precision and unprecedented reliability. Furthermore, it is an extremely delicate system that enables a non-invasive classification that fully respects the organoleptic characteristics of pears.
For more information
Unitec S.p.A.
Tel: +39 0545 288884
Email: Unitec@unitec-group.com
www.unitec-group.com/