Taking stock of the year that just ended, and looking positively towards 2025, Zetapack discusses one of the most interesting projects realized in 2024. Zetapack's target market has always been the weighing of horticultural products, including vine tomatoes, courgettes, peppers, and the like.
"We were lucky enough to start working with one of the biggest Dutch companies in the sector - Growers United - which is based near Rotterdam,' explains Zetapack owner Nicola Antonacci. "They are leaders in the sale of vegetables, including vine tomatoes, aubergines, cucumbers, and peppers. It was precisely based on this last product, the Sweet Palermo type pepper, that they decided to entrust us with a difficult task: a weighing machine capable of sustained production rates (over 60 packets per minute) that could lower the average giveaway percentage (weight given away per packet) while handling the produce with the utmost delicacy to preserve its value."
The starting point was the C1-LUX weigher from Zetapack, which has so far been successful in Italy and abroad with products such as tomatoes and bunch grapes. The challenge was to adapt the machine to pepper processing and to make it perform at the required level.
This led to the development of C1-LUX, designed together with the Dutch company, which consists of a circular carousel that unloads the product onto 11 conveyor belts: 6 on the right for 500-gram packs, and 5 on the left for 300-gram packs.
"Customers can thus make packs with two different weights at the same time. Despite this change, the operating principle remains the same as that of C1-LUX - a check at the start of the system registers the weight of each pack and, in communication with the carousel, identifies the correct combination to be unloaded next to the basket that is to be completed."
In this case, therefore, it is a manufacturer-customer collaboration that has yielded great benefits, where the relationship between the two parties has been consolidated and very positive results have been achieved.
Antonacci adds that he is currently producing two more lines for the Dutch company, to be delivered shortly. "The commitment we have put into this project has brought us great satisfaction and we thank Growers United for their trust. We are happy to have the opportunity to collaborate with companies of this caliber so that we can continue to develop new technologies that will increasingly benefit and simplify work in warehouses," he concludes.
For more information
Zetapack
Via L. Longo, 220
47521 Cesena (FC) - Italy
Web: www.zetapack.it
Sales Office:
Arianna Zammarchi
Nicola Antonacci
commerciale@zetapack.it