Business features

Each year, thousands of in-season fruit and veggies are carried one-by-one in small blue compartments down one of many 17-metre long lanes to be screened by the latest Colour Vision Systems (CVS) screening system.

The process of picking, sorting and packing of fruit and vegetables has come a long way since factory workers in hairnets and gloves sorted the good from the bad by hand.

“It was during the 1980s that the fruit and vegetable sorting industry moved away from manual to mechanical,” said David Lindsay, who was appointed to the role of General Manager in late-2006 to prepare the company for future expansion.

CVS was established in 1989 by three Bacchus Marsh locals – Charles Esson, Gary Brown and Ian Madden. Gary and Charles, both electronic engineers, worked for Australian Industrial Electronics (AIE) at the time. Ian Madden was as a mechanical engineer developing fruit handling systems.

“They saw an opportunity to merge mechanics and electronics in the fruit and vegetable industry,” David explained.

Most of the company’s 57 staff members – including engineers, designers, electricians, draftsmen, boilermakers, metal finishers, fitters and turners – continually research and develop the original CVS range of fruit sorting and packing products.

“We are extremely highly regarded in onions,” David said. “We are considered to be one of the leading manufacturers in the world for onions and citrus, and we also do stone fruit very well.”

The CVS product line ranges from simple bin tippers to state-of-the-art fruit sorting machinery. The Integra Conveyor, the base fruit sorting product, is purchased by clients with one, two or three of the CVS-developed applications or attachments.

The Integra’s blemish grader attachment photographs fruit and vegetables to detect blemishes. Another Integra application, the Near Infrared (NIR), detects sweetness and dry matter. The Quantum uses a two camera system to sort fruit and vegetables by colour. Insight, a new internal technology, is ideal for large produce such as rockmelons.

When coupled with the various applications and attachments, the Insight Conveyor is a significant investment and can cost in the millions depending on size and add-ons. There are currently around 30 in operation around Australia.

“The largest machine we’ve done is 18 lanes,” David said. “There are only five or six other companies in the world doing machines this size.

“We have just taken an order for a 16-lane machine for a company in California which does oranges - this could be expanded to 22-lanes. They have had three days of frost – a bad season. But where they have had damaged crops, they can use our machines to sort the crops by weight and sort the good fruit from the bad. What the equipment does is size it and weighs it. If the fruit is good it’ll go on to be packed.”

Over the years CVS has received a number of manufacturing and agribusiness industry awards for research and development achievements - awards such as National Australia Bank’s 2006 Agribusiness Technology and Innovation Award. CVS continues to allocate a considerable 10% of the company’s annual budget on research and development.

“We want to maintain our leadership position in the world fruit and vegetable industry through research and development,” David said. “We’re constantly evolving.”

Today, the CVS high-quality fruit-sorting equipment is sold to customers in more than 20 countries around the world. CVS service technicians can sometimes travel as far as Argentina to service client equipment in a 32-hour return trip.

Eventually, trained staff in the Florida office (established in 1997) and California office (established in 2000) will service clients in South America and North America, leaving the Bacchus Marsh-based CVS team to concentrate on the burgeoning China market.

“MAF RODA Agrobotic saw opportunities with what CVS was doing and bought a 40 per cent stake in the company in 2002,” David said. “MAF then increased the stake to 70 per cent in 2006.

“MAF RODA is based in Mountauban, France - it is largest player in fruit and vegetable sorting equipment in the world. MAF’s involvement allows us to access markets on a global scale, and also opens up opportunities in South America, China and other parts of Asia.”

“We are doing a prototype for China, which just does weight. Doing a product for China, it has to be cheap, and it has to be partially manual as there are employment rules which require that manual labour has to be used.”

Despite plans for further expansion, CVS intends to remain head-quartered in Bacchus Marsh. The company’s founders are still heavily involved in the business. Charles Esson is the company’s Research and Development Manager. Gary Brown is the NIR and Electronics Manager. Ian Madden is the Marketing and Sales Manager.

“Ian has travelled the world and understands the markets and type of equipment customers need,” David said. “Although Ian mostly works behind the scenes, his knowledge is invaluable.”

CVS has the innovative products and the heavy-hitting international backing – and now like the company’s many fruit and vegetable grower clients, all that is needed now is rain. “Our workbook is pretty full despite the fact that the market is quite depressed in Australia. We’re quite dependent on the seasons.”