Fruit Cleaning Service rescues rejected soft fruit

The quality requirements of retailers do not lie. Many strawberries, berries and raspberries are rejected for the store shelves, while they are still perfectly suitable for consumption. Robbert Leisink, Maxim de Roeck and Kevin Smedts are doing their bit for both the fruit and the grower with their company Fruit Cleaning Service. They buy up the batches of soft fruit and provide a solution.

Fruitful-Berries

The three men behind Fruit Cleaning Service add up to more than twenty years of experience in the red fruit market. With the parent company Fruitful-Berries they are experts in the supply of soft fruit for the Western European market. From the Fresh Park in Venlo they are in contact with both local and foreign growers to be able to continuously supply a day fresh product.

Problem

Fruitful-berries trades in Class I fruit, but not all the fruit supplied is of this category. An estimated 8 to 10 percent of the total supply is labeled "Class II" and thus ends up in the trash. At Fruitful-Berries alone that means half a million kilos of fruit a year. It often happens that an entire lot is rejected because only 15 percent of the fruit is class II. Separating the good from the bad fruit is seen as too much trouble.

The men explain: "Discarding is mostly seen as the easiest solution. The landfill costs are for the producer. There are buyers who process this fruit for the food industry, but even then the grower puts money on it." Hence, they came up with the idea of handling the processing themselves. "You take a link out of the chain, giving the grower a fair return."

Solution

With a sorting machine and a few skilled hands, the Fruit Cleaning Service does manage to separate soft, moldy or broken berries from the Class I fruits. Thus, some can still be sold and the rest is frozen. "We have professional freezing lines here in Venlo that are perfectly suited for this," says Robbert. The frozen fruits are later processed into smoothies, ice cream and milkshakes.

Source: De Limburger and AGF

Read also how the Vegetable & Fruit Brigade in Venlo saves discards!