BCON Instruments, in the Netherlands, has been importing and distributing 2nd Sight Bioscience in Europe for several years. This American company supplies innovative equipment and software for growers. This is in the field of labor registration and stock management. They have a product for the fruit and vegetable sector. It's called the FairPick Pro labor and harvest registration system.
This is an easy-to-transport cart that can be taken into the field. The machine has a sturdy scale from Mettler Toledo. Pickers use an FID card to log into the system. This provides a flawless overview of clocking-in and out times. It also registers picked volumes. The FairPick gives laborers clear voice commands in various languages.
"It's perfect, especially for soft fruit growers. Workers place the harvested product on the scale and scan their RFID card. The FairPick Pro registers the picker, date, time, weight, GPS location, and variety. All within seconds. At the end of the day, the FairPick is taken from the field to the office. Its batteries are charged, and all the data is uploaded. This is done, via a WiFi connection, to a portal in the Cloud," explains Dick Bruynzeel of BCON Instruments.
"That makes a wealth of management information available to farmers. The time registration system (and in some countries, the harvested volumes) can be directly linked to the wage payment system too. American growers use this system. They earn back their investment in a single picking season. The FairPack, therefore, contributes grealtly to cost reduction. That's for labor-intensive crops of ten to thousands of hectares. Immediate availability of this data helps farmers make a big efficiency leap."
"It has unlimited applications. Insight into hours worked, and performance is vital. That's when it comes to assessing individual worker's effort and commitment. So, you can reward pickers according to their performance. Salary information is available at the push of a button too. But growers can also generate GPS yield charts to analyze profitability per crop," Dick concludes.
BCON Instruments wants to introduce FairPick further in Europe. It's, therefore, not only looking for small fruit growers. It's also seeking suppliers with entrances in this sector. They can market the FairPick Pro.
For more information:
Dick Bruynzeel
BCON instruments
5 Nieuwlandseweg
4697 RK, Sint-Annaland, NL
Tel: +31 (0) 166 654 008
Email: d.bruynzeel@bcon-instruments.nl
Website: www.bcon-instruments.nl