Be it as an entire fruit or sliced, peeled or with its peel on, and as a snack between meals or an ingredient in meals, apples are one of the most popular fruits in many regions worldwide. Every year, millions of tons of apples are cultivated, imported and exported, and processed all over the world – mainly because they can be successfully stored all year round, and not just during the harvest season.
In comparison with many other fruits, apples are a relatively affordable product. When it comes to achieving cost-effective manufacturing of end products, processing activities with low staff requirements and the highest possible yield are essential. KRONEN offers a multitude of solutions for various stages of apple processing, from hygienization to peeling, decoring, and cutting into different shapes and right through to post-treatment and packaging.
With the DECONWA Prep, whole fruits are treated in a wash tank to prepare them for further processing. Various hygienizing additives can be used at this stage to decontaminate the product surface and thus avoid cross-contamination in the subsequent stages of peeling and cutting. The integrated overhead water shower and the optionally available air blower ensure that the entire product surface comes into contact with the washing water, even in the case of floating products such as apples.
With the various models in the AS line of apple peelers, apples are peeled, decored and, where desired, cut into slices, wedges, or bite-sized pieces with a perfect processing result. The top-cut knife enables any peel remnants that may remain on the top edge to be efficiently removed, thus significantly reducing subsequent manual work. Other machines suitable for cutting apples include the KUJ V cube, strip & slice cutting machine and the PGW pneumatical grid cutter.
To prevent the oxidation of the cut apples, the apple chunks or slices can be post-treated in the KDB 120 dipping bath after the cutting procedure. Here, the cut produce is continuously fed through water containing additives in a wash tank, which only requires a very low fill capacity with a correspondingly low quantity of additives to achieve perfect results. The KDB 120 is therefore the ideal solution for particularly resource-friendly and in turn cost-effective post-treatment.
If needed, the cut apples can then, for example, be packaged as individual portions for safe transportation.
