ABB Robots in Fruit Packhouses: Hand Wrapping to Robots

From hand-wrapped oranges around 1900 to vision-guided tray packing today, and how ABB FlexPicker and IRB 4600 robots fit into fresh produce packhouses.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/25/20261 min read

Around 1900, a photographer stood at the end of an orange packing house, probably in Covina, California, and caught the whole crew at work. Long rows of packers wrapped oranges by hand and fitted them into wooden boxes, and the full boxes were carried off and stacked by hand too.

Black and white photo of a long wooden packing shed with rows of workers and stacked fruit boxes
Black and white photo of a long wooden packing shed with rows of workers and stacked fruit boxes

Packers at work inside an orange packing house, probably Covina, California, around 1900. Photo: California Historical Society via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Machines arrived early for the easy part. Grading machines like this one for apricots in New Zealand's Central Otago rolled fruit into lanes by size, and later came washing lines and camera sorting. Someone still had to pick up each fruit and set it into a tray.

Black and white photo of a man beside a grading machine with apricots rolling into lanes
Black and white photo of a man beside a grading machine with apricots rolling into lanes

A fruit grading machine sorting apricots in Central Otago, New Zealand. Photo: Archives New Zealand via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Packhouses are now running short of those people. "Any farm or packhouse operation will tell you that labour availability is a problem," one grower told FreshPlaza in September. The Spanish equipment maker MAF Roda is promoting its smart packhouse at Fruit Attraction in Madrid, and its Line Pack uses vision to set fruit into moulded trays.

Worker in a hairnet and mask sorting red pomegranates in a water-filled washing tank
Worker in a hairnet and mask sorting red pomegranates in a water-filled washing tank

Pomegranates on a washing line in a packing facility in Afghanistan, 2010. Photo: USAID Afghanistan via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

ABB doesn't make fruit graders, but its IRB 360 FlexPicker has handled delicate food for years. It hangs over a conveyor, tracks each item with a camera and puts it down gently, as on this topping line. Tray packing of soft fruit needs that same kind of pick and place.

ABB delta robots above a stainless steel conveyor placing food into trays
ABB delta robots above a stainless steel conveyor placing food into trays

ABB IRB 360 FlexPickers placing delicate food on a topping line. Photo: ABB

Further down the line, ABB robots already work in produce packaging. At Orora Fresh Packaging in Kingsville, Ontario, two ABB IRB 4600 robots stack finished produce trays and flip the top one to keep dust out, so fewer people have to lift heavy stacks. For mixed items of different shapes, ABB offers its Robotic Item Picker.

Close view of a grey ABB IRB 4600 robot with the ABB logo inside a production cell
Close view of a grey ABB IRB 4600 robot with the ABB logo inside a production cell

An ABB IRB 4600 in the produce tray cell at Orora Fresh Packaging, Kingsville, Ontario. Photo: ABB

I expect packhouses to automate from the end of the line backwards. Pallets come first, then tray making, and last the tricky job of placing a ripe peach without bruising it. Once that step works reliably, fruit could be packed closer to the orchard, and I suspect it would reach our kitchens a little fresher.

White ABB robot arm with a suction gripper reaching down in a picking cell
White ABB robot arm with a suction gripper reaching down in a picking cell

ABB's Robotic Item Picker, built to pick mixed items of different shapes. Photo: ABB

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