Supermarket Perimeter - June 2023 - 54

Produce: Fresh-cut
The fruit industry in general is poised for 3-4% growth, Takeshita said.
For fresh-cut fruit, it's even higher - 5-6%.
As demand and markets grow, so do labor costs, and many more
stores are still struggling to find labor, he said.
ASTRA machines fit in kitchens large and small, include back-of-thestore
departments at grocery retail.
And the labor savings are significant. One of Astra's customers,
Takeshita said, bought two peelers. They were able to decrease the
number of employees doing fresh-cut from 14 to 2.
And anyone can use them, he said. One customer told ASTRA about
a 75-year-old employee who can peel 300 pieces of fruit per hour with
her company's peeler.
In 2022, Astra made major upgrades to its pineapple/mango/melon
peeler, the KA-750PM, Takeshita said. The machine is now much more
lightweight, saving users shipping fees and making it easier to clean and
handle in general.
When it comes to fresh-cut, trends vary depending on the region,
Takeshita said. In Asia and South America, pineapple is hot. In Europe,
it's lemons, and in the US, mangoes.
The benefit of ASTRA peelers is customers can peel many kinds of
fruit with the same peeler, he added. The company's peelers are now in
use in more than 50 countries.
In just a few months, Takesheta, Astra's peeling machines can pay for
themselves in saved labor costs.
Its large, industrial peeler, the FAP-1001, is used in fresh-cut food
commissaries and other large-scale facilities, like pie production plants
and plants that produce value-added foods for hospitals, luxury ships,
in-flight meals and other applications, Takeshita said.
Astra's tabletop model, the KA-700H, is used in juice bars, cake shops,
fruit stores, supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, school lunchrooms
and more.
The company got its start as a manufacturer of persimmon peeling
machines. In 2015, it decided to expand its business to include peeling
machines for other fruits. Because persimmons are on the pricey side,
Astra developed high-quality, high-speed equipment to peel the fruits,
which translated well to other fruits.
In 2019, Astra introduced the KA-750, a peeler designed for
pineapples, mangos and melons, a machine that Takeshita said will
change Astra's product mix in the near future.
Most peelers use a round-type peeling unit, which is easy to
manufacture, but slows cutting yields.
In addition, peeled surfaces are bumpier, and more juice is lost in the
process.
Astra's peelers use a peeling blade, a method that more closely
replicates a person hand-peeling a piece of fruit.
The blade method, Takeshita said, makes the peeling speed faster
and the surface more beautiful, and there's a higher yield rate and less
chance of juice dripping.
USA Distributor
darksideequipment.com
Tel. 303-883-7203
54 - JUNE 2023
supermarketperimeter.com
Lipman Farms
https://youtu.be/iAR0OGjwhZ8 https://delivr.com/2sgv5-qr http://en.e-astra.co.jp http://www.darksideequipment.com
Supermarket Perimeter - June 2023

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