Dutch AgTech company Crux Agribotics is launching its SortiPack® Cucumber robot line globally. The launch is captured in a video of the automated handling line in operations at a cucumber grower.

After having successfully implemented SortiPack® Beef Tomatoes, the company is now expanding its portfolio towards cucumbers. With increasing scarcity and cost of labor, automation and robotization are crucial to make the fresh produce and horticulture sector more scalable, sustainable and future proof. The SortiPack® robot line for automated grading, sorting and packing generates more value for growers and packers than only (labor) cost reduction. The computer vision and Artificial Intelligence (AI) guided robot line fosters more consistency and predictability in the process and makes it more flexible and scalable. Its open system architecture and advanced data functionality makes the system integrable with surrounding systems and data portals. All data is available real-time and offline for process and yield optimization purposes.

In below video the SortiPack® Cucumber can be seen in action.

The SortiPack® Cucumber robot line is a modular system that allows growers to vary the number of robots in function of the desired capacity and to adapt this afterwards. SortiPack® handles each cucumber individually determining the weight accurately in an unprecedented manner while combining this with all geometrical data from the 3D vision systems. The robots pack cucumbers individually, making it more flexible than any other systems out there in the market. It enables multiple stacking patterns to be applied while also taking into account the actual cucumber and package characteristics, such as length, thickness and curvature. The cucumber-centric approach reduces the chances of waste and damages. SortiPack® Cucumber handles multiple sorting classes, package types and product orders  simultaneously making it extremely flexible and also suitable for central packing centers. The integrated data functions can be used for process optimization or settlement of batches as well as yield optimization. All data is available on the system and on remote desks via a digital twin function, and can be exported or integrated with surrounding systems (climate or data portals, ERP or MES system). Individual cucumbers can be tracked and traced along the system including detailed grading information per product, package, order or customer With extra modules, the track and tracing can be extended and integrated with harvest data.

SortiPack® provides cucumber growers and packing centers a future proof, scalable and sustainable automation solution. It can be adapted and expanded and enables production to be optimized in number of shifts, number of days with a smaller dedicated team and with less dependency on individual, human observations and decisions