Raytec Vision Optical Sorters and X-ray Inspection

Raytec Vision is an optical sorting and inspection company founded in 2001 and headquartered in Parma, Italy, and is listed among the ATS group brands on its website. It helps food processors remove defects and foreign bodies from fruit, vegetables, tomatoes, potatoes, seafood, candies and packaged food while cutting manual sorting labour.

Its optical sorters, including Opportunity, Spray, Spiryt, Ingenuity, Curiosity, Discovery and Dryce, inspect each product from all angles; Opportunity uses Raytec's Infinity AI software with one-to-one analysis and self-learning to detect cuts, rot, colour defects and misshapen items. The Raycore and Raybox X-ray machines inspect packaged food. Customers range from tomato processors to Siam Del Monte, a Del Monte Asia subsidiary in Thailand, supported locally by service partner Tanamac.

• Opportunity: AI optical sorter for peeled tomatoes, citrus and potatoes with 360-degree inspection.
• Infinity AI software: one-to-one analysis of each product with continuous self-learning.
• Spray sorter: inspection configured for small products such as sweet corn kernels.
• Application range: sorters for fruit, vegetables, potatoes, seafood, candies and wine grapes.
• X-ray inspection: Raycore and Raybox machines check packaged food for contaminants.
• Test rooms and service: product trials at the Parma facility and local service partners.

• Vietnamese frozen vegetable and sweet corn exporters replacing manual picking lines with optical sorters.
• Fruit processors grading pineapple, mango or citrus pieces before freezing or canning.
• Seafood and snack plants using X-ray inspection on packaged products before export.

• Less labour: at Siam Del Monte the sweet corn line went from 25 operators to about 8 after installing a Spray sorter.
• Higher defect removal: rejection efficiency rose from under 70% to over 90% in the same case.
• Reasonable payback: the case study estimates a return on investment of about three to four years.
• Improving accuracy: AI self-learning keeps reducing sorting errors over time.

Labour shortages and stricter buyer specifications are pushing fruit, vegetable and seafood processors to automate grading with AI vision. Southeast Asian exporters of canned corn, frozen vegetables, cashews and seafood need consistent quality to meet international buyers' requirements.

Founded in 2001; headquarters at Via Rudolf Diesel 2, Parma, Italy, with a US subsidiary (Raytec Vision USA). The website lists Raytec among ATS group brands. Thai service partner Tanamac supports Asian customers such as Siam Del Monte.