THE COMPANY

Alponfrutta S.r.l. has been operating continuously in the fruit and vegetable sector since the early 1950s, when the first company was founded by the Burato family.

Since then, Alponfrutta has expanded its business, supplying wholesale fruit and vegetable markets throughout Italy, large-scale retail chains and the fruit processing industry. The company has specialised in the procurement, storage, processing and packaging of fresh fruit products, particularly apples, pears, plums and, above all, cherries, which are typical of the area where the company is located.

Alponfrutta also places great emphasis on collaboration with its suppliers and is distinguished by the high flexibility of its operational structure. The company directly manages and oversees every stage of the process, in order to optimise and meet each customer’s specific requirements.

THE REQUEST

Alponfrutta turned to REV driven by the need to automate the cherry packaging process in punnets and clamshells, which had previously been carried out manually, with a significant expenditure of time, energy and costs.

OUR SOLUTION

REV designed and built a customised packaging system that enabled Alponfrutta not only to automate weighing and filling operations, but also to change the container format independently and quickly, according to production needs.

The line, which ensures a production up to 80 punnets per minute, consists of:

• Bison weigher, extremely fast and gentle in handling the product;
• U5-203 denester–filler, capable of handling 5 punnets simultaneously;
• Click, a clamshell closing machine able to process 5 punnets per cycle;

In addition to speed, the line introduces a significant innovation in terms of format changes: whereas previously a fairly experienced operator was required, along with numerous mechanical adjustments resulting in extended machine downtime, the solution developed by REV allows format changes to be carried out easily through just a few simple and quick operations.

BENEFITS

Thanks to REV’s packaging line, the client reduced labour of more than 65% and, at the same time, tripled the daily production.

Dupi also managed to obtain a great saving on the materials, since Tiger netting machine guarantees minimum waste of the latter.