Sorting machines help potato grower decrease labor dependence

Michigan-based potato grower Sackett Ranch says it has decreased its dependence on labor with Tomra sorting machines.

“The Tomra machines have solved our labor problems,” at Sackett Ranch, said in a news release. “If I wasn’t using a Tomra product, I’d be scrambling every morning to find people, waiting to see who shows up and who doesn’t. Now we need just a few people.”

Parr said the equipment can do multiple processes at once for the potato grower.

Sackett Ranch sells the majority of its potatoes to potato chip brands in the U.S. Parr said that no more than 2% of potatoes shipped to plants are permitted to be green, undersized, oversized, or with external defects.

Since the company’s investment in the Tomra 3A and Tomra 5A optical sorting machines, Sackett Ranch has found it easy to meet the quality standards by pressing a few buttons on a touchscreen, he said.

The Tomra 3A optical sorter is designed to remove foreign materials from harvested potatoes and is capable of handling up to 100 tons (120 short tons) per hour, the release said. For Sackett Ranch, the machine eliminates foreign materials such as stones, corn cobs and dirt clods, as well as green potatoes.

At Sackett Ranch the Tomra 5A, a premium bulk sorting and size grader, is used for a final inspection, categorizing the potatoes by size and quality while removing green and undesirable potatoes to within the 2% threshold.

Parr said the Tomra sorters help boost quality.

“We know exactly how much green, foreign material there is, per field and per bin, and we can grade-out scab more precisely than with the human eye,” Parr said. “With manual labor, we were getting out roughly 60% of all the foreign material; now we get close to 90%.”