Checking a pallet of fruit for firmness is a costly exercise. From receipt through ripening to packing and on to eventual dispatch, small samples of fruit are normally destructively measured for firmness using a penetrometer. While destructive samples are designed to be representative and to minimize waste, it is often the case that they fall short on both counts. Destructive quality control tests can destroy up to 5% of a pallet. Packing 5 tons of avocado per day it’s possible to destroy up to $150,000 of fruit per year! The portable Sinclair iQ Benchtop has been used to reduce this waste significantly,---plus, the unit is 4 times faster than penetrometer testing and is non-destructive. Meanwhile Sinclair’s on-line systems measure and sort each and every fruit based on individual fruit characteristics – without the need to sample.

For more information on the Sinclair iQ Firmness Testing, in North and Central America contact Alex Dietz at alexd@sinclair-intl.com or Mark Blake at markb@sinclair-intl.com for anywhere else aside from North & Central America.