PROCESSING OF LEMONS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 78, Issue 7015, 4 February 1949, Page 5

PROCESSING OF LEMONS

MODERN PLANT IN OPERATION AT TAURANGA PREPARING CITRUS FRUIT FOR MARKET Amidst delightful surroundings a short distance from Tauranga township, the Internal Marketing Division has established and operated for the past six months a modern and wellappointed citrus fruit processingplant. This is a large-scale enterprise, well beyond the capacity of a private concern. At present lemons only are prepared and packed for market in the factory, which, with the related marketing machinery of the division, provides an efficient and stabilising intermediary designed to give the best possible -service to both grower and consumer. Later it is hoped to extend the factory’s plant to cope with apples, pears and other fruits grown in the district on a commercial scale.

The process through which the lemons pass is an interesting one, commencing with the arrival of the fruit from the growers in speciallymade containers. These are received on a staging not unlike that of a dairy factory. From here the boxes are taken by serviceable little handbarrows to the starting point on an elaboratelv simple series of conveyor belts through a bath of antiseptic fluid heated to a temperature of 160 degrees. This bath serves the dual purpose of cleaning and sterilising the lemons, and it is important that the fruit be conveyed through it at a uniform speed to prevent too severe heating. Proceeding on its journey the fruit is carried on to radial brushes which rotate with an alternate motion in a perpendicular plane. This ensues removal of stains, and leaves the lemons with their characteristic colouring of yellow, green or off-white, depending on the stage of ripeness. Sorting and Grading The fruit then negotiates a corner and is distributed down on to the sorting benches, where efficient girls clad in overalls and wearing rubbergloves dexteriously marshall the lemons to their respective destinations in the factory. The lemons are broadly classified, into preferred (highest grade) groups, green lemons, and rejects. After a short time, according to an official at the factory, the girls become most proficient at recognising and sorting the various grades of fruit on the fast-moving conveyor belt. From the sorting room green lemons go into a large freezing chamber, where they may be kept for a month or more, until they are fit for marketing. Preferred grade fruit passes thlqugh special channels in the packing department which deposits them in various boxes according to size. Like the other departments of the factory, the packing room is fitted with a number of mechanical arrangements designed to reduce manual labour—and the employment of workers—to a minimum. In packing the layers in the boxes are placed in the sequence of one unwrapped and one Wrapped, alternately, this being to reduce spoilage without unnecessarily increasing labour and costs. A s in all supply industries, packaging is an important item in the marketing of citrus fruit. The Tauranga factory makes all its own boxes with modern box-making machinery imported from America. These machines, of which the factory has three in operation, considerably reduce time and labour expended in this department of the works. White pine, grown mainly on Matakana Island, off Tauranga, is the favoured timber for the boxes and crates.

The factory building ig a durable structure of glazed brick and plaster, and the rather threadbare claim is submitted that it is the largest of its kind built for its purpose. The building is pervaded by a characteristic smell which gives point to the comment of a worker at the factory: “ The answer is a lemon.”