WASHING AND POLISHING VEGETABLES

AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY: Potatoes used to be pulled up by hand. Then the machinery rolled up. Then the potato washer arrived, and now the polishing machine for both potatoes and carrots. Consumers want vegetables to put straight in the pot.

Not many years ago, potatoes were something with soil on that you bought in big sacks. One then faced the tedious task of washing and peeling them at home in the kitchen. That routine lasted right up to the day when Ekko Maskiner in Denmark developed a potato cleaner to wash and sort potatoes at the farm. Now consumers have taken to these nice clean potatoes with enthusiasm.

Meeting demands
Today Ekko Maskiner has taken a step further by launching a polishing machine which makes potatoes directly useable from the supermarket.

     “The machine can also polish carrots,” says director Kim Guldborg Petersen of Ekko Maskiner in Bredsten, Denmark. “The purchasing managers of the large supermarket chains are tough. If they can get goods which look better on the shelves, they want them. There is a strongly increasing market for washed and polished fresh vegetables, packed in portions, directly ready for cooking. We are so busy that we can hardly keep up with the demand. The farmers growing the vegetables also see the writing on the wall. If they want to survive, and that means meeting the requirements of purchasing managers, they have to invest.”

     The washing, sorting and polishing machinery of Ekko Maskiner is sold all over the world, with markets such as New Zealand and Australia being the first to take an interest in the polishing machine for potatoes and carrots.

Collaboration
“Our success is based on the innovation related to the actual machine, and also to an excellent collaboration with the Danish companies Asalift and Newtec which respectively produce carrot harvesters and packaging machinery. Newtec’s computer controlled packaging machines have made the company into the largest in the world in that area.” In recent years, Ekko Maskiner has seen growth rates between 10% and 15%. This year growth will be even higher following the introduction of the polishing machine.

http://www.ekkoas.dk