Dive Brief:

• At the Southeast Regional Fruit and Vegetable Conference, BBC Technologies introduced the CURO-16, the world's fastest fresh produce filling machine, which aims to make blueberry processing more efficient.
• With this machine, BBC international sales and marketing manager Jason Walker said a strong emphasis continues to be on limiting drops to stop fruit damage in its tracks, reports The Packer.
• BBC is looking to expand future machinery that can pack other smaller produce, like grapes, cherries, and cherry and grape tomatoes.

Dive Insight:

Describing the new machinery, Walker said, "It has a lot of new precision controls that enable us to get down to that one blueberry in terms of accuracy. With a high-paying product, you don’t want to give anything away. While speed and accuracy are important, we know consumers want a really good eating experience. This equipment helps ensure the quality of fruit retained so it can pack a blueberry that remains nice, has a good shelf life and hasn’t gone moldy a week after it’s packed.”