The global history of the spoon pitting system began in 1967, when an Italian engineer developed the first knife-based peach pitter, featuring multiple heads and a fruit alignment system, revolutionizing the spoon pitting system and increasing production capacity to up to 180 peaches per minute. In the following years, pitting technology was furtherly improved, significantly increasing production capacity and yield. Today, the technologies developed and patented by CTI FoodTech, have enabled the creation of more modern and efficient industrial machines used by the world's leading fruit processing companies.
1967 - Meccanofrutta Italiana
Engineer Giordano Tomelleri patents the first rotating knife cutting system applied to peach pitting.
1972 - FMC
The American corporation FMC acquires Engineer Tomelleri’s patent and builds the 200-A model:
- capable of pitting 6 fruits in parallel
- equipped with a pre-cutting system
- 360-degree spoon rotation
- capacity of 240 fruits per minute
- discontinuous orientation
1995 - FMC
The engineers at FMC in Parma design and build the 300-A peach pitter:
- capable of pitting 8 fruits in parallel
- capacity of 320 fruits per minute
- discontinuous orientation
- completely made of stainless steel
- 360-degree knife rotation
- equipped with a pre-cutting system
2008 - CTI FoodTech
CTI FoodTech purchases the Peach Line business unit from the American corporation FMC FoodTech and begins manufacturing their machinery under its own brand.
2011 - 320 APA (International Patent)
CTI FoodTech CEO Engineer Biagio Crescenzo patents a continuous automatic orientation system applied to the 320 APA peach pitter, achieving an orientation efficiency of approximately 90%.
2014 - Sistema di riconoscimento ottico
- Optical scan system of the suture line
- Automatic fruit ejection system for unrecognized fruits
- Rotating spoons driven by a brushless motor
- Touchscreen control panel
- Automatic fruit counting
- LAN connection enabled
- On-board diagnostics
2015 - 320 APA-E (International Patent)
CTI FoodTech manufactures the 320 APA-E pitter. This machine is the electronic evolution of the 320 APA and features a logic processor designed to improve significantly its performance compared to the previous model.
2015 - Repitter Upgrade
The optical scan system, already tested on other models, is applied to the Repitter Vision repitter. The machine can now recycle fruits that failed to repit due to incorrect positioning.
2016 - MultiFruit Coring
CTI FoodTech introduces the Multifruit Coring peach pitter, completing its range of pitting technologies. Designed for the Baby Food market (zero pit fragment tolerance), the machine combines the high performance of CTI FoodTech technology with a top quality final product.
2020 - 320 ZPF
CTI FoodTech manufactures the 320 ZPF Peach Pitter, the first peach pitter in the world capable of pitting leaving no fragments.
Ray Camezon (Oakland 1931 – San Francisco 2016) is a California native whose name has been associated with the food processing industry throughout his career. His career began with the Filice and Perrelli Canning Company as a Design Engineer, and he played a major role in the design, service and installation of the Filper Peach Pitter.
Ray Camezon became Vice President, Director of International Operations for Filper, with responsibility for developing the International Market for peach pitters and other food processing and packaging equipment. He subsequently formed companies and made acquisitions worldwide on behalf of Filper, eventually capturing over 90% of the world market for peach pitting equipment, pioneering the industry. Ray Camezon left Filper in 1977 to form his own successful company to develop, build and lease a new concept of twist pitting machine. In two years, this company (California Processing Machinery) conquers 28% of the US peach pitting market.
History of the Evolution of the Twist Peach Pitter
The first production run of the Filper Peach Pitters was in 1954 at the Filice and Perrelli Canning Co. plant in Richmond, California. The quality and yield recovery were extraordinary. Small peaches had always been disadvantaged in knife pitting in that only a small casing of pulp could be recovered from the small fruit with the FMC knife pitter. The FMC machine would saw the peaches in half and then the machine would knife pit the peach using the same size knives for all the peaches. In addition to the cutting of the peach in half, there was considerable loss of pulp that adhered to the pit. The number of cases per ton that could be obtained from the fruit was only 43-46 cases per ton.
Joseph Perrelli designs and promotes the construction of a machine to separate peaches from their pits by twisting (twist pitting), recovering all the pulp, improving quality, and increasing yield to 54-58 cases per ton, a great saving for the cannery.
Filper Corporation is founded in 1953; Joseph Perrelli is issued a patent, which begins a new era in peach pitting.
In 1954, 60 Filper hand-fed pitters are built and installed at the F&P plant in Richmond, California, where they perform very well. In 1955, 250 Filper pitters are built and installed in canneries throughout California. In 1956, 684 Filper pitters are built and installed, with another 800 built in subsequent years. Starting in 1961, automatic aligners were installed on all Filper pitters.
In 1977, California Processing Machinery was founded and the first CPM Automatic Twist Pitters were introduced to the canning industry in California and Australia. The results were excellent and by 1978, 144 machines were built and installed in California canneries. The CPM machines were water lubricated except for the gearbox, eliminating contamination of the fruit and conveyor rollers with petroleum-based lubricants, which pleased both canners and the USDA. Unlike the CPM machine, the Filper Pitter had 101 locations that needed greasing or oiling, which raised concerns from the USDA and canners about contamination of the fruit and conveyor systems in the canneries.
In 1979, another 227 CPM Automatic Twist Pitters were built and installed in California canneries.
Ray Camezon sells California Processing Machinery to FMC in 1980.