© BizerbaMany Southern African packhouses and food processing facilities already have weighing and labelling components manufactured by German company Bizerba embedded in the packline systems, even if the name of the company is not yet as familiar in the fresh produce industry as it is in the local red meat industry.

This year Bizerba celebrates 160 years since its establishment in Germany in 1866. Active in South Africa since 2014, Bizerba systems are entrenched in the protein, dairy and fresh food industry, and now, says Bizerba Southern Africa managing director Christian Schiess, they are keen to enlarge their fresh market segment. “Bizerba aims to be as close as possible to the customer. Technical support is our most important value-add because we aim for the closest proximity to our customers.”

Schiess continues: “We want to be in the packhouses and high care facilities. Bizerba manufactures a vast array of integrated or self-standing weighing and independent systems used in sorting, labelling and inspection, for instance metal detection.”

A frequent request, he says, is from packhouses where fruit is packed into bulk export packaging and where a separate end-of-line system is needed for local retail programmes with different labelling demands. “We want people to know that there are independent systems available if they need to complement, support or expand an existing packline. Bizerba is on the ground in Southern Africa with a technical team and a sales team, providing local support, know-how and practical expertise close to the customer. For smaller producers, or for additional lines and smaller-volume projects, we increasingly see demand for further processing and labelling solutions that can be executed quickly on the ground, and that’s where we come in.”

Accurate weight control, for example, can help producers identify underweight packs while also limiting unnecessary product giveaway. Automated checkweighing can reduce reliance on manual weight checks, while metal detection and X-ray inspection can support product safety and quality control requirements. Automated labelling and traceability systems can also assist packhouses in managing different products, customers, pack formats, and retailer requirements. For existing fresh produce and nut operations, static/dynamic weighing, inspection, or labelling systems can be integrated into existing operations to address specific production challenges or bottlenecks.

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Many global manufacturers of fresh produce sorting and packing solutions use Bizerba systems for their weighing and inspection solutions, while in Türkiye, Qualitas Berry recently automated the weighing and labelling of their blueberries with the help of Bizerba (read more about the project).

The open Bizerba industrial software BRAIN2 is also part of the solution offered by the company. It is an important component for seamless integration into the existing infrastructure, enabling centralised master data maintenance, which can help maintain consistent product information across connected systems, Schiess says, while production data from multiple devices can be brought together to provide greater transparency over line performance and production activity. He adds that this creates transparency for all production data from Bizerba and 3rd party devices.

Occasionally, he remarks, customers also ask Bizerba Southern Africa to support related project requirements, drawing on its local base and technical network to help coordinate solutions for additional processing steps such as cubing, grating, slicing and dicing where this complements the customer’s line requirements.

Bizerba Southern Africa is looking to engage fresh produce growers, packhouses, and nut processors that want to assess their current weighing, inspection, labelling, traceability, or processing operations.

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For more information:
Sadashni Govender
Bizerba
Tel: +27 71 895 5183
Email: [email protected]
https://www.bizerba.com/