How can you ensure desired date quality and consistency?

 

A task that is made even more difficult due to huge variations in date quality across seasons, batches and varieties. Working with growers and packers around the world, we know that the world of date production is challenging and fiercely competitive. Nevertheless,every day you must meet the strict market standards for quality, size, shape, color, skin separation, moisture levels, weight and overall appearance. Fortunately, AI grading technology can help you achieve consistent quality and meet these high standards. Batch after batch, season after season.

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.

 

#1. Defects and diseases will damage your brand reputation.

 

Every season brings new risks. Heat waves, humidity and rainfall swings directly affect date quality. Sugar spotting, skin damage, fermentation, and internal rot appear without warning. Fungi, bacteria, and hidden internal defects stay invisible to the human eye, yet customers notice them instantly. One bad batch is enough. Trust drops. Your reputation takes the hit.

#2 Rejection hurts your business.

It only takes a small % of defective dates 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 date ends up in the right place.

 

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

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Sorting by hand is outdated, automation is the industry-standard.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

The answer to all your date 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 Date 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 date graded correctly, you’ll maximize the return on each harvest while delivering exactly what your customer needs.

 

This is why leading date growers and packers choose Elisam:

 

#1. 360° precision grading.

Meet a date 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 date. This complete analysis, achieved with 20 high-resolution images per date, allows you to grade your dates with the highest accuracy. The Ellips TrueSort external quality system can detect every single defect at speed such as
loose skin, insect damage, calyx, doubles, mechanical damage, yellow cap, broken skin and more

#2. Internal defects have nowhere to hide.

Your date may look perfect on the outside, but the internal quality may be a different story. Apples can be affected by various internal diseases or defects. These internal problems, such as black mold are not good and cause a chain reaction, as dates with internal problems can infect other dates during storage or export. With the Ellips TrueSort internal quality system, you can see through the entire date (instead of just underneath the skin) and accurately detect internal defects. By virtually slicing the date 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.

 

#3. 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 date, it’s only through Ellips True-AI that can accurately model all these combinations. True-AI, detects even the most challenging defects and date characteristics with an eye for the smallest details. You are now able to improve detection of difficult defects like all severities of loose skin, black mold and yellow cap, even on multi-colored dates. With grading performance moving towards 100% detection accuracy, you can fully trust the grading results and consistently deliver a superior product to your customers.

> Explore the powerful benefits of True-AI

 

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