This Machine Separates Green and Red Tomatoes While Harvesting: How Does It Work?

The tomato is one of the most interesting foods within our reach. Botany classifies it as a fruit (technically a berry), but once it reaches kitchens it is usually interpreted as a vegetable, and we also see it transformed into sauces (including ketchup), juices, soups, or alcoholic beverages. Its adventure begins with the mechanical separation of red and green tomatoes. There are machines that can separate tomatoes with precision over 90 percent without sacrificing speed, so the question is: How exactly do they do it?

The tomato can be a simple companion in any salad, or become trapped in the center of a political debate. The price of tomato has even reached the news on more than one occasion, as has its occasional disappearance from stores due to seasonal issues. That usually installs the feeling that the tomato is a 'complicated' food compared with other fruits and vegetables, and its producers are likely to agree simply because its processing demands more and more technology. A critical step is classification, and with the notable exception of small-scale organic farms that separate tomatoes manually, the fastest and cheapest is to leave the heavy work to machines like this:

The TomatoTek Machine

This particular system is called TomatoTek and is made by WECO, a company based in California. One of the most impressive aspects of the TomatoTek is that it can be installed 'on' the harvester and built to any width the customer requires. The light reflection technology in the TomatoTek's sensors allows it to recognize red and ignore it, while activating a series of levers to divert 'non-red' tomatoes. Obviously, the TomatoTek is not perfect, but its accuracy reaches 98 percent, more than enough as a first phase. Tomatoes can undergo a secondary classification phase at the processing plant, with additional parameters (for example, size).

I have browsed WECO's official page looking for some data on the TomatoTek's cost, but all that information is given privately. I imagine the initial investment must be outrageous, however, once the benefits in time and money saved begin to accumulate, the machine inevitably pays for itself.