Citrus Fruits Packing Solutions

(MACHINE - 01)

The TL-FP-350 is a horizontal flow packing machine for citrus fruits that wraps individual oranges, lemons, limes, mandarins, and grapefruits in sealed pillow bags at up to 230 pieces per minute.

A cushioned belt conveyor feeds fruit into the film web without the hard impacts that crack rinds and cause hidden juice pocket damage beneath the surface.

The touchscreen stores 100 product recipes — operators select a preset for Valencia oranges, switch to Meyer lemons mid-shift, and the servo system recalibrates bag length, film tension, and seal timing automatically.

Built-in date coding prints harvest dates, grower lot numbers, and pack house identification directly onto each bag for full traceability.

(MACHINE - 02)

After wrapping, individual citrus packages need organized placement into retail or export cartons.

The TL-CT-200C automatic cartoning line forms flat carton blanks into boxes, uses a vision-guided spider robot to pick wrapped fruit from the conveyor and load them into open cartons, then seals the finished case — all without manual handling.

The robot tracks randomly arriving packages in real time using flying pick capability, placing fruit in flat, standing, or layered arrangements depending on buyer specifications. Swapping between suction cups and mechanical grippers lets the same line handle lightweight lemon bags and heavier grapefruit packs without dedicated equipment for each fruit type.

(MACHINE - 03)

The TL-PR-20 robotic palletizer receives sealed cartons from the cartoning line and stacks them onto shipping pallets in programmable patterns at 8–12 cycles per minute.

Three arm reach options (1480mm, 1680mm, 1880mm) fit different packing house floor plans, and dual pallet stations allow one pallet to load while the other rolls out for stretch wrapping or cold storage transfer.

For citrus exporters shipping container loads of oranges or mixed citrus varieties, the palletizer maintains consistent stack geometry that maximizes container utilization and prevents carton crushing during ocean freight.

(CHALLENGE - 01)

Citrus fruit carries value in its appearance — a single scuff mark on an orange rind or a pressure bruise on a lemon drops the piece from premium grade to juice stock, cutting revenue per kilogram dramatically.

Worse, internal bruising from rough handling during packaging remains invisible until the fruit reaches the buyer, generating complaints and chargebacks weeks after packing. Standard packing machines for oranges built for rigid products like boxes or trays apply forces that citrus rinds cannot absorb without damage.

Soontact Solution: The TL-FP-350 replaces rigid chain conveyors with cushioned belt material transport that carries each fruit through film forming, sealing, and cutting without drops, pinch points, or lateral compression. Adjustable conveyor speed synchronization matches fruit spacing to film feed rate, preventing pile-ups where pieces press against each other.

Packers handling premium export-grade mandarins and navel oranges maintain first-grade classification rates through the entire packaging process.

(CHALLENGE - 02)

Citrus harvest does not arrive at a steady pace. A packing house may receive three truckloads of Eureka lemons on Monday, shift to blood oranges Tuesday, and run mixed grapefruit and tangerines Wednesday — each variety requiring different bag dimensions, film tensions, carton sizes, and pallet configurations. Packing machines for lemons that require extensive mechanical adjustment between products create dead time exactly when throughput matters most.

Facilities that cannot keep pace with incoming harvest volume face fruit deterioration in staging areas, forced sales to lower-value channels, and strained relationships with growers waiting for bin returns.

Soontact Solution: Recipe-based changeover across the TL-FP-350, TL-CT-200C, and TL-PR-20 eliminates mechanical rebuilds between citrus varieties.

Operators recall stored parameters for each fruit type from touchscreen interfaces — the flow wrapper adjusts bag dimensions, the cartoning robot switches loading patterns, and the palletizer selects the corresponding stack configuration. Full line changeover from small limes to large grapefruits completes in minutes.

During mixed-variety harvest days, the system keeps pace with receiving dock volume instead of creating the warehouse backup that forces fruit into cold storage queues.

(CHALLENGE - 03)

Citrus growers targeting international markets and major retail programs face documentation requirements that manual labeling cannot reliably satisfy. Export shipments of oranges to the EU, lemons to Japan, or mandarins to North American retailers each carry specific traceability, labeling, and food safety audit standards.

A single mislabeled carton or missing lot code can hold an entire container at port inspection, and repeated compliance failures remove suppliers from approved vendor lists entirely.

Soontact Solution: The TL-FP-350 prints harvest dates, pack house codes, grower identification, and sequential batch numbers onto every individual fruit package automatically — no manual label application, no handwriting errors, no missing data. PLC-logged production records across all three machines generate exportable reports for GlobalGAP, HACCP, and retailer-specific audit programs.

The optional barcode and QR code labeling module on the TL-CT-200C cartoning line encodes carton-level traceability data that integrates with distributor inventory systems and retail scanning infrastructure. Citrus exporters maintain uninterrupted market access by building compliance into the packing line rather than relying on manual documentation processes.

Products

Applications

Quick Links