This virtual tour allows you to see many packaging activities with several different apple varieties. The packaging line can accommodate only one variety at a time. This tour allows you to see photographs from various production runs on different days.
Fruit arriving at the production plant may come from various sources. During harvest bins arrive at the production plant directly from the orchard. After harvest is finished, bins arrive at the production plant from our cold storage locations. Once the cold storage supplies for a particular variety are exhausted, controlled atmosphere (CA) rooms must be opened to supply the production line.
This picture shows how fruit from CA arrives at the Vaughan Avenue production plant.
Each plant has a receiver responsible for ensuring the fruit arrives at the packaging plant before the scheduled production run. The receiver is responsible for scheduling the trucks and finding a location at the plant to temporarily store the fruit. Each grower’s bins of fruit must be moved and stored together in order to provide a continuous run over the production line. The quantities for each grower run will vary from ten to two hundred and fifty bins.
Temporary storage, Golden Delicious ready for packaging.
The Vaughan Avenue plant main production line requires approximately 400 bins for every shift. Therefore, one week of production with a day shift and a night shift, will require approximately 4,000 grower bins! That’s 3.2 million pounds!
If straddle carriers, the preferred low-cost method to hauling fruit from nearby CA rooms, are to be used for next week’s production. How many truck loads will it take to haul 4,000 bins? A straddle carrier’s capacity is 36 filled apple bins. Hmmm…..this will require several days! We need to plan ahead!
The mainline production schedule needs to be planned at least six days in advance. That allows, if necessary, two days to vent a CA room and four days to haul the fruit to the production line. It also allows time to find any required supplies --- like preprinted boxes, glue, trays, stickers, pallets, and other packaging material. The required production team must be scheduled and notified. As well, the mechanics must be notified to modify any required equipment. And last but not least, the computer program that runs the production line must be adjusted to reflect the desired production. The required people, equipment, supplies, and fruit must all arrive at the production line at the right time to start packaging the fruit.
Everything is ready. Here is the fruit. It’s going onto the packaging line!
Hope everyone is ready for it!
Loading Golden Delicious on the mainline
Royal Gala bins submerge, apples float
The forklift driver simply places a stack of bins on the line. The bins are automatically submerged under water, one by one. That’s how we get the apples out of the bins, by gently floating them!
Apples float, pears don’t! How do we get the pears out of the bins? Tour our High Road plant for the answer.
Quality control
The quality of the fruit entering the production line is recorded. Quality recording for every grower’s batch of fruit takes place at receiving (when the grower brings the fruit to our storage facilities), when the fruit goes into the packaging line, and when the packed fruit comes out of the packaging line. Every grower receives detailed feedback of their fruit quality. The feedback will tell them how good of job they are doing in their orchard. Our horticultural experts will help the growers improve their fruit.
How do apples leave the water? They use the elevator!
Royal Gala apples ride the elevator onto first sorting table
McIntosh apples first sorting table and automatic washer
Process collection bins
The first sorting station is the presort. Here apples with obvious defects are manually removed and sent to the process collection bins. Process fruit will be sold to companies making apple sauce, fruit leather, and apple juice. Sun-Rype’s Kelowna juice plant is located across the street from our Vaughan Avenue plant. They buy most of our process fruit.
Apples come from the orchard. Apples have a natural wax coating. This coating attracts soil and dust. Therefore the apples must be thoroughly washed. Unfortunately, washing also removes some of the natural wax from the apple. Therefore, once they are washed and dried, we replace the natural wax removed during the washing process with a natural source wax. One gallon of wax is enough to polish and protect five to eight tons of apples!
Here the apples are thoroughly dried with a high velocity sheer fan.
High velocity fan
Golden Delicious on sorting table
The apples are now moving across the sorting table. This sorting table allows wand touch sorting or manual sorting.
The sorting tables have infrared cameras located on the ceiling. These cameras track the position of every apple on the table. The apples rotate as they pass the sorters. Sorters indicate defects with a touch of the wand. Infrared light is transmitted from the wand to the cameras. The light is located between the suction cups. The light position relative to the fruit being touched indicates the defect grade. The computer memorizes which fruit has been touched and what grade has been indicated. This is called "defect" sorting.
The plastic enclosed rectangular box, under which the apples disappear, contain the color cameras. The color cameras take four color readings. The computer takes the average of the four readings and assigns a grade, based on the instructions in the computer program.
After measuring the color density and color coverage, the apple is transferred to a plastic cup. Immediately after the transfer, the plastic cup is raised from the line and the weighted average of 64 readings of weight determines size. That’s right, size is determined by weight.
The little sticker you often see on the fruit is automatically applied here. The sticker is called a PLU label. It has the number the cashier in the grocery store keys into the cash register to indicate variety and price. These stickers are special rice-based, edible stickers! One of our plants also uses edible paper stickers. Although we do not recommend eating an entire roll of stickers, accidentally eating a sticker will not harm you!
PLU labels
PLU labels
At this point, the computer knows, for every apple, the size, and the grade. The apples are now travelling along the grader. The computer knows exactly what lane to release the apple. That is how similar grade and similar size apples are assembled together.
Royal Gala trays
Spartan trays
Bliss machine assembles boxes
Boxes are created by a bliss machine. The bliss machine uses hot glue to glue two box ends into a box inner. The machine also slides a box outer over the completed box. The box will be filled with apples before the lid is sealed. Boxes are made from corrugated cardboard.
This packaging line is a single-pass packaging line. That simply means the majority of the growers apples are packed during the first pass across the production line. Small size apples may be setaside, put back into bins, for the specialty line for later packing into 3, 5, or 6 pound bags or several types of consumer size boxes. As well, the computer will send imperfect or low color apples to the process collection bins.
Naturally the packaging line can accommodate only one variety at a time. This virtual tour allows you to see pictures from various production runs on different days.
On the other side of the grader, the trays are loaded into a denester. These machines automatically feed the various size and various pattern trays. In each box of apples the trays may vary in shape and quantity.
For example, size 100’s use five trays of twenty apples with the trays alternating in position. Size 113’s use three trays of twenty-three apples and two trays of twenty-two apples. Size 088’s use four trays of 22 apples.
The size determines the number of apples in a box. Therefore a lower numbered size contains larger apples. Conversely, a higher numbered size contains smaller apples. Regardless of size, the weight of the box is similar for each variety.
The trays alternate in shape in order to:
For most shipments in Canada and the United States, one box weighs, depending on the variety, between 40 and 42 pounds. Red Delicious and Fuji weigh 42 pounds, Spartans and Royal Gala weigh 41 pounds.
How much does one Spartan size 088 weigh? How much does one Royal Gala size 150 weigh? If you ate one Fuji size 113 and two Red Delicious size 138, how many pounds of apple have you eaten? How many kilograms? Hint: Subtract a little bit of weight for the apple core.
Quality control
Royal Gala trays, filled boxes accumulate under grader
During production completed boxes of apples are inspected by quality control. Inspection results are immediately relayed to line supervisors. Growers receive feedback regarding the quality of their fruit. Our horticultural experts will help the growers improve their fruit.
Apple trays are gently placed into the box. The finished boxes of apples accumulate under the grader. The person watching the accumulator screen electronically controls the box movement. When there are sufficient apple boxes of one size and grade to make a full pallet of boxes, the accumulator operator will send the boxes to be stamped, sealed, strapped, and palletized.
Filled Royal Gala tray boxes
Right, Royal
Gala stamped, sealed, and strapped
Left, Red Delicious from Specialty Line
The stamping machine knows where the fruit is coming from and will automatically stamp the grade and size on the box. The apple trays are put into the box through the top. The box lid must now be glued shut. The strapper will put a strap around the box that firmly positions the fruit in the box. The palletizer automatically stacks the boxes on a pallet. Each box is perfectly positioned. Stamping is facing out, space between boxes allows optimum cooling, the box pattern supports the weight evenly, and the hot glue on the box lid will help keep the boxes in position during transit.
Royal Gala finished pallet
Golden Delicious finished pallet
The palletizer machine works automatically. The finished pallets accumulate until the forklift driver is ready to move the finished pallets to the cold storage rooms. If 42 boxes of Spartans are on one pallet, how much does one pallet of Spartans weigh? Hint: Add 47 lbs for the weight of the pallet.
L to R, Golden Delicious, Spartan, and McIntosh in storage
Our storage rooms have large refrigeration units that can cool the fruit quickly. Our fruit is shipped in refrigerated trailers to grocery store warehouses. However, refrigerated trailers have very small refrigeration units that have difficulty cooling the fruit. These trailers are capable of maintaining the temperature of fruit that has been previously cooled. Therefore, to ensure good arrivals, pallets of fruit should be stored 48 hours before shipping. At the Vaughan Avenue plant we have storage capacity for approximately 200,000 finished apple boxes!
Orders may contain various varieties, grades, sizes, and packages. When an order is received the order must be assembled in the shipping area.
First the order is received in the shipping office and given to the warehouseperson. This person has records that indicate what room and row the fruit is located. There are many storage rooms.
When a truck arrives at the shipping dock, the driver will see a carloader. The carloader will assign a forklift driver to the order. The carloader is responsible for assigning a loading bay, assigning a forklift driver, overseeing the order assembly process, and overseeing the loading process. Here are photographs of a carloader organizing a load, trucks being loaded, and trucks waiting in the loading bays.
Carloader organizing a truck load
Trucks being loaded, inside view
Trucks being loaded, outside view
One or more customers may be serviced by a truck. The apples for the first customer stop on the trucker's list must be loaded in the rear of the truck. The last customer stop must be loaded in the front of the truck. The truck driver observes the loading procedure and signs for the fruit. Once the truck leaves our loading bay, the trucking company is responsible for ensuring a safe transit to the grocery store warehouse.
Your favorite apples in transit to the grocery warehouse
The apples are now travelling to the grocery store warehouse. The grocery store warehouse will ship the apples to many grocery stores. The grocery stores will display the apples in the store, for you to purchase and enjoy.
The Vaughan Avenue plant also has a specialty line.
How about a specialty line tour?
