CTI Foodtech S.r.l. has been eligible for funding and the grant for the Industrial Research and Experimental Development project Named “STRATER” “STRATER – STRAwberry sTEm Remover” from the resources of Priority Axis 3 – Competitiveness of the production system – Specific Objective 3.1 Relaunching the investment propensity of the production system – Action 3.1.1 Aid for investment in machinery, equipment and intangible assets and accompaniment of the processes of corporate reorganization and restructuring. CUP B57H22003180007
The project is co-financed by the European Union, the Italian state and the Campania region, under the POR Campania FESR 2014-2020.”
Technological-productive domain: AGROFood
Scope of work: Packaging, land bioremediation and resource efficiency management for agro-industry
Technology Trajectory: BA07 – Methodologies and devices for quality control/food safety and monitoring of both conventional and medical, functional, innovative food products/processes as well as supplements and/or nutraceuticals
Improving innovation capacity with respect to the trajectories of the technological-productive domains of RIS3 Campania
SUMMARY
The “STRATER” Project aims at the realization of a new model of strawberry processing machinery that, responding to the needs expressed by producers of processed and preserved fruit, enables the system, thanks to a new and optimized vision technology, to cut the fruit calyx automatically, so as to increase the production of cut fruit, reduce waste in cutting the calyx and, overall, increase the processing speed of the machine.
The aim of the project is, therefore, to develop an intelligent strawberry handling and cutting system supported by a computer vision system applied to the recognition of the position of the fruit petiole.
Currently, there is no system for automatically locating and placing strawberries in an industrial process (an operation entirely delegated to labor).
PRODUCTION AND MARKET OBJECTIVES
The innovation, not being among those currently produced by the company, may give new market outlets and new shares to be gained by being able to provide an important competitive advantage right away.
CONTRIBUTION TO THE PROMOTION OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
At present, 75-80 percent of strawberry processing is still done manually, generating a large expenditure of water resources needed for continuous washing of the product. The efficiency of the industrial processing system will drastically reduce such water consumption, as well as reduce raw material waste during processing.
