How can you ensure desired potato quality and consistency?

Are you struggling to identify and sort out potatoes that have challenging defects?

A task that is made even more difficult due to huge variations in potato quality across seasons, batches and varieties. Working with growers and packers around the world, we know that the world of potato production is challenging and fiercely competitive. Nevertheless, every day you must meet the strict market standards for quality, size, shape, color and overall appearance.

Following are the top challenges you might face, but don’t worry, we’ll also explore some solutions to ensure consistency and maximize your returns.

Defects and diseases will damage your brand reputation.

Because of variable weather & growing conditions, each season has different, or more prevalent, defects which makes it challenging to deliver consistent quality. Extreme weather events, and ever stricter regulations on pesticide use, can have a big impact on potato quality. On top of that, disease, bacteria and fungus can cause a range of different internal defects that are extremely difficult to detect.

Rejection hurts your business.

It only takes a small % of defective potatoes to dramatically increase the risk of rejection. More than ever, it’s important for growers to meet the ever-changing requirements and quality standards. On top of that, you must meet your volume and on-time commitments while preserving the consistency and quality of your packed product. That’s why it is critical that you do everything possible to ensure that each and every potato ends up in the right place. 

Uniformity in a world with a lot of sizes, shapes and quality differences.

Every potato is different. So is every defect. Internal and external defects occur in many ways and can vary from season to season and batch to batch. This variability in size, shape and quality makes it challenging for manual graders to consistently sort potatoes into uniform grades, which can affect their marketability.

Sorting by hand is outdated, automation is the industry-standard.

To address the above challenges, automation of the grading and sorting process is increasingly being seen as the only way to efficiently achieve the desired quality on a consistent basis. 

Automation provides the added benefit of being able to maximize the value of each potato and to easily modify grading standards to address the unique needs of your customers. On top of all that, the reduction in labor costs can significantly impact your overall returns.

Potato AI Grading Technology

The answer to all your potato challenges in one: Ellips-Elisam.

After a season of hard work, you want to be rewarded with maximum harvest value. Regardless of weather conditions or batch quality, you can always deliver consistent quality with the Elisam Potato Grading Machine (powered by Ellips grading technology). 

By consistently meeting your client’s quality requirements each and every season, your reputation as preferred supplier is greatly enhanced. With every potato graded correctly, you’ll maximize the return on each harvest while delivering exactly what your customer needs.

Casey Folson, Sales and Marketing Manager at Folson Farms:

"Ellips-Elisam stood out for its gentle potato handling, unmatched quality consistency and throughput. Our operations are now more efficient with fewer labor requirements and higher capacities."

Folson Farms potato grading large capacities

This is why leading potato growers and packers choose Elisam:

360° precision grading

Meet an potato grader with the best product handling and full surface inspection that handles each variation perfectly. The Elisam machine has been specially developed with a unique rotating carrier that gives you a 360° view of each potato. 

This complete analysis, achieved with 90 high-resolution images per potato, allows you to grade your potatoes with the highest accuracy. The Ellips TrueSort external quality system can detect every single defect at speed such as wireworm, common scab, sprouting, black and silver scurf, green potatoes, growth cracks, mechanical damage, punctures and more.

Wylie Thulen, Owner and operator at Pioneer Potatoes:

"You can tweak it to suit your different potato varieties, fields and products. It's like having a solution that can be perfectly tailored for each batch. Instead of relying on someone's eyes to spot defects, these cameras catch everything, every time."

Pioneer Potatoes Potato Grading Technology Smaller-scale Farm with Big Grading Results

Internal defects have nowhere to hide.

Your potato may look perfect on the outside, but the internal quality may be a different story. Potatoes can be affected by various internal diseases or defects. These internal problems, such as internal browning, flecking, glazing, freeze damage, dry matter, hollow hearts and more, are not good and cause a chain reaction, as potatoes with internal problems can infect other potatoes during storage or export. 

With the Ellips TrueSort internal quality system, you can see through the entire potato (instead of just underneath the skin) and accurately detect internal defects. By virtually slicing the potato into pieces (up to 20 scans), you can examine and recognize these defects at lightning speed. Sometimes it’s even possible to detect internal diseases at an early stage.

Reinhard Krebbers, General Manager at Wilhelm Weyers:

"Thanks to our optical sorting machine, not a single potato with an internal defect leaves our premises."

Reinhard Krebbers: Control over the internal quality of potato grading

True-AI. Detecting even the most difficult defects.

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers opportunities to improve your grading process with intelligent automation. With so many ways for defects to appear across every piece of potato, it’s only through Ellips True-AI that can accurately model all these combinations. 

True-AI, detects even the most challenging defects and potato characteristics with an eye for the smallest details. Now able to improve detection of difficult defects like wireworm, compression bruising and mechanical damage. With grading performance moving towards 100% detection accuracy, you can fully trust the grading results and consistently deliver a superior product to your customers.

Renee Pye, General Manager at Zerella Fresh:
 

"The optical grader delivers higher throughput while ensuring consistent quality. It removes defects, guaranteeing excellent grading results, and its adds flexibility to meet changing packaging needs."

Revolutionize your potato business with a guarantee of consistent quality.

Consistent quality is everything. With the powerful Ellips grading technology and Elisam machinery, you can detect the most challenging potato defects to deliver superior quality. 

This allows you to achieve maximum returns and the consistent quality desired by your customers. High-quality potatoes lead to improved customer satisfaction and loyalty, giving you a competitive advantage in the market.