Daws weigh-system prevents raspberry giveaway

Agroleaf (Newby Farm) grows and packs strawberries and raspberries to be sold to large supermarket chains.

Chris Hoggard has been operating a commercial strawberry and raspberry farm at the site in Huggate, East Yorkshire since 1994, and has also capitalised on the 'pick your own' sites around the East Yorkshire areas of Driffield and Beverley.

The company now has an annual turnover of approximately GBP2m.

The installation of the Daws Vantage (Dynamic Average Weight System) from Stevens allows legal conformity of the finished product and vastly reduces giveaway.

Operators weigh each product on a scale as they are guided through a responsive and quick weighing system.

The six weighing systems are networked to a management PC where the traceability and yield information is stored for average-weight conformity.

Average-weight legislation requires that the batch average must be at least the declared weight; Daws allows the target weights to be continually adjusted in accordance with the legislation to ensure giveaway is vastly reduced.

Fruit and vegetable packing still relies on the operators and their personal target weights.

The inconsistent nature of produce makes packaging a complex process and a few grams of giveaway on each pack can produce a significant financial loss for the packaging site.

In Hoggard's case, he has reduced his seven per cent annual over-usage to just above zero.

Hoggard originally bought six Vantage Daws systems, but recently bought two more, as the investment was self financing.

Toby Hawkins, sales manager for Stevens, said: 'The Vantage Daws system can produce an impressive range of reports, giving a detailed and instant view of the operation at any given time.

'Typical reporting data relates to operator performance, line efficiency, product performance plus a variety of traceability reports for legal purposes.

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