The Pluckr: one year after the Food Valley Award

Innovative grape picker continues further development

During the coming Food Valley Expo (12-13th October) the Food Valley Award will be handed out. The Pluckr, last years’ winner, has seen further development over the past months, assisted by the acknowledgement of the Award.

In 2014, the prestigious Food Valley Award was handed out to the Pluckr: a new type of grape picker. Beforehand it was clear that the Pluckr was a promising innovation. Even so, winning the award has firmly promoted the further development of the product.

In the process of picking consumer grapes it is important that the grapes come off the bunch undamaged. Manual picking is the – expensive – way to do this. With the Pluckr a few workers can in a short time pick more grapes from the bunch, enabling fruit processors to work cheaper and market the prepacked grapes at a lower price.

Since winning the Food Valley Award, the Pluckr has been further developed. After the introduction of the 4-head Pluckr, a 6-head variant has been developed for the convenience of larger processors: a large American fruit processor has ordered and taken delivery a whole series of 6-head Pluckrs. Pluckrs are also operational in the UK and Spain. And tomato and berry growers have also shown interest.

Dennis Favier, creative director at TOP: “Winning the Award has brought us a lot of attention. This gave many companies the opportunity to appreciate the possibilities of our innovation, thus enhancing the investment readiness. Because each company has its own needs we were able to connect to the specific wishes from the market for larger or smaller applications. At this moment, for instance, a 1-head Pluckr is being developed.”

The Pluckr is an innovation of TOP BV and JFPT/foodlife. During the Food Valley Expo these companies will offer a lot of information about the Pluckr, along with the presentation of several other innovations.