TOMRA’s optical sorting machine enables Turkish business Mapeks Organics to strengthen its position as a high-quality, high-efficiency exporter, according to a press release.
A pioneering leader in organic agriculture, Mapeks was founded in Izmir, Turkey, in 1999. From its four production facilities in the country – in Bilecik, Usak, Afyon, and Malatya – the company markets 35 different organic fruits to 80 countries on seven continents. As well as exporting frozen cherries, sour cherries, apricots, and figs, Mapeks is Turkey’s largest global exporter of organic strawberries. In fact, of the 20,000 tons of organic strawberries shipped annually from Turkey, 10,000 tons are from Mapeks. The annual value of the company’s exports is USD35m.
To ensure high product quality, food safety, and high yield, Mapeks continuously develops its facilities and invests in cutting-edge technology automation. Its latest investment, a TOMRA Blizzard optical sorting machine, has improved product quality and increased capacity.
“Frozen organic fruit production is an important and emerging industry for the future. Today our Mapeks products are sold at 12,000 sales points around the globe. Some 80% of these are located in the United States, where our organic packaged fruits can be purchased in supermarkets all year round. It is essential that our products are of high quality and comply with food safety and hygiene standards. Utilizing optical sorting machines offers many benefits in crucial areas such as increasing product quality, ensuring food safety, retaining high product standards, and reducing product loss. That is why we chose the Blizzard optical sorting machine and placed it in our facility in Afyon,” explains Mustafa Memur, the chairman of the Board of Mapeks Organics.
Mapeks Organics is using use the Blizzard mostly for processing strawberries, cherries, apricots, and pomegranates. Compared to traditional manual sorting methods, the new machine is much more efficient: it now takes 15 minutes rather than 40 minutes to process a ton of product, which will enable Mapeks to increase its monthly production tonnage by 25%.