Site Planning
Installation & Commissioning
Automatic & Efficient
Client Name： P****F Foods Public Company Limited
Country： Kingdom of Thailand
Region： Prachuap Khiri Khan Province – Thailand's largest pineapple planting and processing base, a core production area for global pineapple cans
Core Products： Canned Pineapple Slices, IQF Frozen Pineapple Slices, Dried Fruit Raw Materials, Ready-to-Eat Pineapple Slices, High-end Baking Ingredients
Equipment Configuration： Hadof customized high-speed pineapple slicing production line (including automatic peeling & coring system, precision thickness slicing unit, online color protection and IQF freezing / canning connection module)
Commissioning Time： Q2 2020
Thailand is a global leader in pineapple production and export. Pineapples from Prachuap Khiri Khan are famous for their golden flesh, balanced sweetness and sourness, and tender fibers, accounting for nearly 40% of the global pineapple can market. P****F Foods is one of the oldest pineapple processing enterprises in the region, with products sold to Europe, America, Japan and the Middle East. With the increasing requirements of international buyers for slice specification consistency, food safety and production efficiency, the traditional manual slicing method can no longer meet modern production needs.
Core challenges in pineapple slicing:
Complex peeling and coring process: Pineapples have rough and thorny shapes, with flesh tightly connected to peels and hard cores. Manual peeling and coring is inefficient with high loss. A skilled worker can only process less than 30kg per hour, with high operational safety risks.
Uneven slicing thickness: Manual slicing thickness error reaches ±2mm, resulting in inconsistent fruit slices in canned products, affecting packaging appearance and consumer experience. The return rate of high-end customers is as high as 12%.
Fragile and juicy flesh: Pineapple flesh has high water content and crisp fibers. Manual slicing easily causes fruit slice breakage and juice loss, seriously affecting the appearance and yield of canned and frozen products.
Oxidation and hygiene risks: Flesh is easily oxidized and discolored after slicing, with many manual contact links and difficult microbial control, making it hard to meet strict import standards in European and American markets.
Based on the characteristics of high water content, crisp fibers and irregular shapes of pineapples, Hadof team customized a fully automatic pineapple slicing production line for P****F Foods:
1. Intelligent Integrated Peeling & Coring Unit
Combining visual positioning and mechanical profiling, it automatically completes cutting both ends, removing peels and extracting hard cores of pineapples, with a flesh integrity rate over 96%. The processing speed reaches 3 tons per hour, nearly 10 times higher than manual work. Peeled and cored flesh directly enters the slicing station for seamless connection.
2. High-precision Low-damage Slicing Unit
Ultra-thin stainless steel circular blades complete cutting instantly at high speed, minimizing flesh extrusion and juice loss. Thickness adjustment range is 4mm-15mm, with deviation controlled within ±0.3mm, meeting different specifications for canned slices, frozen slices and dried fruit slices. Blades are treated with Teflon anti-stick coating to prevent flesh adhesion, no cleaning required for 8 hours of continuous operation.
3. Online Color Protection & Rapid Cooling System
Slices immediately enter the atomization color protection section with vitamin C and citric acid mixed solution, and antioxidants are evenly sprayed to effectively inhibit browning. Then cooled rapidly by low-temperature air flow to below 5℃, locking golden color and natural aroma. The whole process from slicing to canning or IQF freezing tunnel is controlled within 60 seconds, reducing oxidation browning rate from 10% to less than 1%.
4. Intelligent Color Sorting & Foreign Matter Removal
Equipped with high-speed visual color sorting system, it automatically identifies and removes browned slices, fiber clusters, residual cores and foreign matters with sorting accuracy of 99.6%. Qualified products are automatically graded according to thickness and specification, connected to canning line, IQF freezing tunnel or vacuum dryer respectively, realizing full-process automation.
5. Hygienic Design & Easy-cleaning Structure
The whole line adopts 304 stainless steel fully enclosed structure, with rounded corners on all contact surfaces and no sanitary dead corners, supporting CIP in-situ cleaning. Key components can be quickly disassembled to meet the highest requirements of BRC and IFS international food standards for ready-to-eat fruit processing.
Client Testimonial: From Traditional Processing to Global Pineapple Industry Benchmark
Since the full operation of the new line in 2020, P****F Foods has achieved leapfrog development:
Capacity & Efficiency
Daily fresh fruit processing capacity: increased from less than 18 tons of manual processing to 55 tons per shift, up to 90 tons per day at full capacity, becoming one of the largest pineapple slicing processing bases in southern Thailand.
Labor optimization: The number of workers in peeling, coring and slicing links reduced from 250 to 16 technicians, cutting labor costs by more than 90%, completely solving the seasonal recruitment problem and greatly reducing work injury risks.
Quality & Market
Finished product qualification rate: slice integrity rate increased from 72% to over 96%, thickness consistency reached 99%, chip rate controlled within 2%, European and Japanese customer rejection rate reduced from 12% to less than 0.5%.
Market expansion: Passed BRC, IFS and Kosher certifications, successfully entered the long-term supply system of many well-known food enterprises (such as Dole, Del Monte) in Europe, North America and Japan. The proportion of deep-processed product exports in the group's total revenue increased from 35% to 70%.
Comprehensive Benefits
Raw material utilization rate: Through precise peeling, coring and intelligent sorting, the comprehensive raw material utilization rate increased from 78% to 94%, saving more than 900,000 US dollars in pineapple raw material costs annually.
Energy optimization: The whole line adopts high-efficiency variable frequency motors and waste heat recovery systems, reducing unit output power consumption by 23% compared with traditional split equipment, winning special awards for green manufacturing from the Thai Ministry of Industry.
"Hadof's pineapple slicing line has completely changed our perception of traditional fruit processing. Now, every slice of pineapple reaches the tables of global consumers with precise thickness and perfect golden color, and our products have won a high reputation in the international market. This is not only an equipment upgrade, but also an important milestone for us to move towards intelligent manufacturing."
—— P****F Foods Public Company Limited, Technical Director Mr. Somchai
