In September 2019, Montague broke ground on its packaging and export distribution centre. The 18,000 sqm facility with a capacity of more than 40 million kg is one of the largest in the world. It features a 6-lane MLS sorting system, five pack lines with scope for expansion, a 50-lane pre-sorter, and an automated storage retrieval system with a capacity of 3,000 bins. All pre-size to finished carton movements are ensured via robotics in a flow-through design that takes the fruit from the orchard, through the facility, and into storage.
Montague Montage partnered with Tomra Food for its technology’s grading accuracy and capacity to ensure the care of fruit through the sorting process to reach the consumer in optimal quality and is safe for human consumption. Tomra Food’s three grading systems inspect the fruit as it enters the production process to ensure the highest quality of the end product. The Inspectra2 platform detects internal defects with high accuracy using Near-infrared (NIR) inspection to analyse the spectra of light transmitted through every fruit to determine internal characteristics. The powerful Spectrim optical sorting platform uses infrared to identify colour or skin marks and bruises that are not visible.
