The history of spoon pitting in the world begins in 1967, when an Italian engineer designs the first spoon peach pitting, multi-head and with a fruit alignment system, revolutionizing the spoon pitting system and increasing its capacity up to 180 peaches per minute. Over the following years pitting technology was furtherly improved, increasing considerably capacity and yield. So we get to present day, with the expertise legacy of the field handed over to CTI FoodTech and made available to the most important processed fruit producers in the world, through the patented technologies installed on our modern and efficient machines.
1967 - Meccanofrutta Italiana
1972 - FMC
The American corporation FMC purchases the patent from Eng. Tomelleri’s and builds the model 200-A:
- Capable of pitting 6 fruits in parallel
- Provided with pre-cut system
- 350 degrees spoon rotation
- 240 fruits per minute capacity
- Discontinuous orientation
1995 - FMC
- • Capable of pitting 8 fruits in parallel
- • 320 fruits per minute capacity
- • Discontinuous orientation
- • Completely in stainless steel
- • 360 degrees spoon rotation
- • Provided with precut system
2008 - CTI FoodTech
CTI FoodTech purchases the Peach Line division from American corporation FMC FoodTech and begins manufacturing of machineries with its own brand.
2011 - 320 APA (International Patent)
Eng. Biagio Crescenzo, CTI FoodTech’s CEO, patents a system of continuous automatic orientation applied to Peach Pitter 320 APA, achieving an orientation efficienty of ≈ 90%
2014 - Optical Scan System
- Optical detection of suture line
- Automatic reject system of non recognized fruits
- Spinning spoons driven by brushless motor
- Touchscreen control panel
- Automatic fruit count
- LAN enabled
- On-board diagnostics
2015 - 320 APA-E (International Patent)
CTI FoodTech introduces the Peach Piter 320 APA-E. The machine is the electronic evolution of the 320 APA and is provided with a PLC that improves considerably its performance compared to previous model.
2015 - Repitter Upgrade
The optical scan system already tested on other models is installed on the repitting machine Repitter Vision. The machine is now capable of recycling the fruits that fail to pit because they were not correctly positioned.
2016 - CORING PEACH (Patent Pending)
CTI FoodTech introduced the core remover Multifruit Coring, that allows to automatically separate the fruit core containing the pit, without creating fragments.
2020 - 320 ZPF
CTI FoodTech introduces the 320 ZPF Peach Pitter, the first peach pitter in the world capable of pitting leaving no fragments.
Mr. Camezon is a native of California and has been associated with the food processing industry during his entire business career. He started his Career with Filice and Perrelli Canning Company as a development engineer, and played a major part in the development, service, and installation of the Filper Peach Pitter.
Ray Camezon became the Vice President, Director of International Operations for Filper, with responsibility for developing the International Market for pitting and other food processing and packaging machinery. He formed companies and made acquisitions around the world on behalf of Filper, and he pioneered and captured over 90% of the world market for peach pitting equipment. Mr. Camezon left Filper in 1977 to found his own successful company to develop, manufacture, and lease a new design of torque pitting equipment. In two years, this company (California Processing Machinery) captured 28% of the peach pitting business in the U.S. market.
Developmental history of the torque peach pitter
The first production run of the Filper Torque Pitters was in 1954 at Filice and Perrelli Canning Co. in Richmond, California. The quality and yield recovery was astounding. Small peaches had always suffered from spoon pitting in that the FMC spoon pitter would only leave a shell of flesh in small fruit. FMC’s machine sawed the peaches in half and then the machine would spoon pit the peach using the same size spoon for all peaches. In addition to the sawing of the peach in two there was a tremendous loss of flesh that adhered to the pit. The number of cases per ton that was garnered from the fruit was only forty-three to forty-six cases per ton.
Mr. Joseph Perrelli conceived and caused the construction of a device to twist the peach away from the pit (torque pitting) saving all of the flesh, improving the quality overall and increasing the yield to 54-58 cases per ton, a tremendous savings for the canning industry.
Filper Corporation was formed in 1953; a patent was issued to Mr. Perrelli and a new era in peach pitting began.
In 1954, 60 hand-fed Filper Pitters were manufactured and installed at F&P Richmond, California where they performed very well. In 1955, 250 Filper Pitters were manufactured and installed in canning factories throughout California. In 1956, 684 Filper Pitters were manufactured and installed and 800 more were built over the years. Automatic aligners were installed on all Filper pitters by 1961.
In 1977 California Processing Machinery was founded and the first automatic CPM torque pitters were introduced to the canning industry in California and Australia. The results were excellent and in 1978 144 machines were manufactured and installed in California canneries. The CPM machines were lubricated by water except in the sealed gear box, eliminating the depositing of petroleum lubricants and grease on fruit and conveyors, which pleased canners and the USDA. In contrast to the CPM machine, the Filper Pitter had 101 points to be greased or oiled, which made USDA Inspectors and canners concerned about contamination of fruit and conveying systems in the factories.
In 1979, 227 CPM more Automatic CPM Torque machines were manufactured and installed in California Canneries.
Mr. Camezon sold California Processing Machinery to FMC in 1980.
