Top 5 Automated Fruit Sorting Systems in Pahang

Pahang is not Malaysia’s showpiece fruit export state—Johor and Negeri Sembilan take that title—but it handles high-value, weather-sensitive produce: Bentong durian, Cameron Highlands strawberries, Temerloh watermelons, and papaya from the Pekan coastal belt. The difference between a profitable farm and a dead inventory write-off in Raub or Ringlet is how many hands touch the fruit before it hits a lorry. Below are five sorting systems that actually match Pahang’s crop mix, road conditions, humidity, and packing-house floors.

1. TOMRA 5B – Strawberry and Soft Fruit Laser Sorter

The TOMRA 5B is a belt-fed optical sorter that pairs a 1.5-lane infra-red laser with two colour cameras. It reads berry size, calyx attachment, white shoulder, bruising, and split skin at speeds around 3.5 tonnes per hour on a 1.2-metre belt. In Cameron Highlands packing sheds, where strawberries arrive at 18°C from the farms in 30-minute intervals, the 5B removes the need for three separate grading tables. The wet-area cabinet is sealed to IP65, which matters on the high-humidity side of Tanah Rata where condensation forms inside standard steel conveyors.

Farms operating out of Brinchang and Kea Farm can set the sorter to reject under-ripe berries using the NIR reflectance signature rather than simple colour—critical because Malaysian lowland strawberries ripen unevenly under 2,000-metre UV conditions.

2. Compac InVision 8000 – Spectral Mango and Papaya Grader

Compac’s InVision 8000 is a multi-lane spectral unit using near-infrared camera bands to measure internal °Brix, fibre blemish, and watercore in papaya and mango before the fruit reaches the weight scales. For Pahang’s Eksotika papaya farms around Pekan and Jerantut, the 8000 sorts by sugar content instead of skin blush, which is useful because Eksotika papayas show yellow tinge while still crunching green. The system runs 16 lanes with up to 12 fruit per lane per second, so a single machine handles the daily output of a 50-acre farm within a 5-hour morning shift.

Packing houses can merge InVision data with a farm gate barcode system via its standard Ethernet API, letting supply managers in Kuantan trace grading results back to the individual irrigation block. The hardware footprint is a 9-metre stainless steel bays, which fits warehouses built for the old manual grading sheds if the fork lift aisle is widened.

3. Aweta GLS X-Ray – Watermelon and Jackfruit Hollow-Heart Detection

Watermelon from Bera and Temerloh is a weight problem, not just a sorting problem. The Aweta GLS (Global Sorting Line) integrates an X-ray tube and a line-row detector that scans each melon for hollow heart and seed cavities before the sizing wheels take over. That matters for wholesale buyers at the Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority (FAMA) audited markets in Kuala Lumpur, who reject ten-tonne loads when more than 4% show hollow heart in cut tests. Aweta’s GLS runs at 12 tonnes per hour, and the X-ray head is rated for continuous 24-hour duty, which the Pahang packing season demands during the Ramadan spike.

For jackfruit processing near Kuantan port, the GLS X-ray can identify internal rot in the bulb clusters before the whole fruit is halved—reducing waste in the frozen chempedak export line. Aweta’s local service partner in Petaling Jaya keeps spare belts and X-ray tube units with a 24-hour exchange agreement for farms in the Pahang interior.

4. Greefa iSort – Compact Camera Grader for Papaya, Guava, and Starfruit

Greefa’s iSort is a compact 3-metre modular grader with a 1-lane colour camera that classifies fruit by size class, shape, skin blemish, and ground colour. It suits Pahang’s smaller family-run packing houses in Raub and Bentong that process mixed weekly batches—today papaya, tomorrow guava, then a run of starfruit for the Singapore market. The iSort software stores up to 24 product presets, so line workers call up a profile on the touch screen rather than reconfigure physical grading rings.

The machine’s footprint is under 4.5 metres, which means it can slot into a packing annex used previously for dry rice storage. Throughput is roughly 4 tonnes per hour, and the claimed sorting accuracy is 91% for blemish, with a 98% size-calibre accuracy. Greefa’s global distributorship lists Malaysia under the Thailand dealer network, meaning spare godets and cameras ship from Bangkok in about 4 working days to Kuantan.

5. Maf Roda OptiSort – Multi-Lane Weight and Calibre Line for Banana and Citrus

Maf Roda’s OptiSort is a mechanical weight-sorter system that does not use cameras—fruit drops onto pivoting cups, each cup trips an electronic load cell, and the fruit is released into the correct lane chute. This is the system to buy when the farm packs bananas, lemons, or ciku, where size and weight dictate the price class, not surface colour. Pahang’s banana growing zones near Temerloh and along the Pahang River produce Mutiara and Berangan hands where grading by finger length matters more than spot detection. The OptiSort handles 8 tonnes per hour and maintains a weight accuracy of ±0.5 gram, which satisfies the demands of banana ripening warehouses in Johor Bahru that pay premiums for uniform grade.

Unlike the camera sorters, OptiSort runs on a 30-amp single-phase socket—a practical benefit for farms in the Muadzam Shah area where three-phase power is still a separate upgrade request to Tenaga Nasional Berhad.

Comparison of the 5 Systems