For more than 40 years, La Coma Company based in Soses (Lleida, SPAIN) is producing and marketing stone fruit in compliance with the utmost environmental care, service level and quality norms, being certified, GLOBALGAP, GRASP, IFS, PI… Production goes from May to November and volumes have reached 40 000 tons per year making La Coma a major player in national and international fruit market with customers all over Europe accounting for 50% of marketed tonnage.
Objectives and requirements
For many years the customer La Coma has been using a large fleet of wooden big boxes adding a plastic liner inside to protect the fruit. Those containers showed a lot of drawbacks: lack of constant tare weight, rough contact for fruit causing bruises and damage, moisture development and potential quality issues during storage, difficulty to clean the boxes, and constant maintenance.
For operators also there were issues with stability at stacking limiting the height of piles, with potential safety concerns. The idea of a new fleet of plastic containers with ideal ventilation ratio, constant tare weight, very limited maintenance, resistance to any weather condition and not promoting mold was making its way. The very positive impact on the company ‘s image was also an important factor.
The Agrilog® choice for La Coma
La Coma has chosen the Agrilog® Schoeller Allibert shallow rigid pallet container with dimensions: 1200x1000x591mm. ventilated sides and base, two runners offering a 446L usable volume. Lightweight but sturdy with 500 kg unit load and 4500kg at stacking, the Agrilog® is designed for preserving the fruit quality, and is the ideal processing, storage and logistics packagin for fragile fruit and vegetables.
Benefits for processing and sorting
La Coma can wash, sort and pack up to 40 tons of fruit per hours thanks to 6 fully automated lines the production reaches 40 000 tons of fruit per year. Thanks to the Agrilog® curved walls, round surfaces and pyramidal base, the fruit is not damaged and the unloading process is fast and respectful of fruit quality. Fully adapted to water soring process, Agrilog® does not retain water and is fast drying.
Logistics and storage benefits
Main benefits on logistics and storage : 20% better truck payload thanks to the Standardized footprint 1200x1000. Less trucks on the roads lowering fuel consumption and the environmental impact of La Coma logistics. 10% more containers and fruit in the 12000tons capacity cool chambers , thanks to the higher stacking capacity compared to wooden big boxes fleet. Labor saving: faster loading and unloading of trucks.