New Zealand Company Lands Deal In Japan

NEWS RELEASE
06 October 2009

New Zealand Company Lands Deal In Japan

New Zealand-owned Compac Sorting Equipment has achieved a major break through in the Japanese market, landing its first ever deal with a kiwifruit pack house in the Fukuoka province.

Compac General Manager, Bob Shaw, said the contract with Agri Co Ltd is significant as it is the first time, after trying for many years, that the company has gained a foothold in Japan.

“Our company in South Korea (Compac Asia) through its General Manager Kang Ho Lee has been working on building strategic business opportunities with clients in Japan for a while now. Our development and use of innovative technology in the New Zealand kiwifruit industry is widely recognized locally and it’s something that we have been working to educate the Japanese kiwifruit packing industry on.”

The Fukuoka area in Japan where the equipment will be installed is the storage and logistics base for Agri Co Ltd. The fruit packed by the company is grown in the northern parts of Kyushu and Shikoku areas.

“Agri Co Ltd is currently in expansion mode establishing a new pack house to handle increased volumes.”

The contract comprises installing two lane sorting equipment and 16 of Compac’s new automated gentle box fillers.

“The labour saving system comprises a combination of smart software technology and hardware developed here in New Zealand,” Bob said.

“Boxes are manually fed into a bank of Compac Gentle Box Fillers which were specially designed to minimise damage to fruit by ‘gently’ transferring them from the conveyor to the box,” he said.

As part of the overall solution, Compac will also provide infeed equipment conveyors and bin dump technology supplied by Compac Asia.

The system is expected to be up and running by early November.

“We’re hoping that this will be the start of many new opportunities in Japan.”

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