The Washington apple industry must be one of the few that puts every possible input into the product before throwing it away. Paul Koch, general manager at Olympic Fruit Company in Yakima, Washington, says that’s what motivated him to install an electronic internal and external defect sorter. He hoped that by sorting out the culls during presizing, before the fruit was treated with SmartFresh (1-methylcyclopropene), stored, washed, and waxed, it could reduce costs significantly. “We looked at the industry, and we thought that if you could presize at harvest you could save a lot of cost,” he said. In addition, […]