Canada: Leamington manufacturer designs cost effective cucumber grader

Once a specialty greenhouse crop, Ontario greenhouse grown Persian/Mini cucumbers are now available year-round. Retailers require these bite-sized cucumbers to be sold in 1lbs pre-packaged bags or trays. Ontario greenhouse grown cucumbers are technically a fruit but are treated, eaten, and thought of as a vegetable. Similar to a common green-skinned cucumber, the Persian cucumber measures about four to five inches long. The challenge is that this sweet flavoured, crunchy fruit grows naturally in different shapes and sizes.

As the demand for the Ontario greenhouse grown Persian cucumbers increases, it also becomes more difficult for workers to manually sort and pack them into recyclable foam trays or bags. Currently, the proper sorting and packaging of greenhouse grown mini cucumbers is done manually and workers must judge by eye. Cucumbers are manually measure and placed in their packaging.

John Friesen and his team at Tug Weld Manufacturing have designed, built, and patented a sophisticated solution to costly mini cucumber sorting and packaging with their Persian King Air Touch Mini Cuke Size Grader. It's estimated that labour intensive packing sheds need 40 employees to grade approximately 50,000 mini cucumbers manually per hour.

"Persian King Air Touch is able to easily process 30,000 cucumbers per hour while requiring only 4 to 6 operators. Sorting and grading machines from overseas performing similar functions can cost up into the quarter million dollar mark and growers and packers pay because of the large savings on labour. Our sorting line cost less than half of what you can buy from overseas. North American made and guaranteed to work", said John Friesen, President Tug Weld Manufacturing.

The machine itself is 5’ wide and 20’ long. Handcrafted and built to food processing industry specs. It is constructed with stainless steel and a carousel conveyor system that runs on various voltages and compact design on castors for easy manoeuvrability around the packing shed. The machine itself consists of as few moving parts as possible, making maintenance easy and infrequent.

The carousel conveyor system allows for convenient circulation of cucumbers between operators on either side of the machine for sorting. This system allows for maximum efficiency while also minimising contact between product and machine, keeping bruising and other damage to an absolute minimum. Operators insert cucumbers into receptacles that were designed for maximum girth allowance from retailers. The right fit means the right diameter of the cucumber.

The receptacles take the cucumber by several adjustable sensors which measure cucumbers according to 7 different size grade lengths and use quick bursts of air to eject them into an existing singular conveyor containing cucumbers of similar length and ready to be placed in recyclable trays and bags with a laser sorting accuracy. The purchase of a Mini Cuke Size Grader unit comes guaranteed with one full year’s warranty and the demonstration video is available on YouTube and can be easily found using Mini Cucumber Sort Leamington as search words.

For more information:
Tug Weld Manufacturing
Leamington, Ontario
+1 519-326-0014
[email protected]
www.tugweld.com