Potato Review

46 POTATO REVIEW SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2021 INDUSTRY UPDATES MULTIVAC, a manufacturer of tray sealers for potatoes and other vegetables, has signed a collaboration agreement with packaging machine manufacturer Italianpack, expanding its product portfolio in the traysealer sector. MULTIVAC Sepp Haggenmüller SE & Co. KG has a purchase option for 25.1 percent of the shares in Italianpack S.p.A. with a term of three years. Italianpack, founded in 1988 in Como, Italy, is a growing manufacturer of traysealers and distributes its products worldwide both through a dealer network and directly. The company employs around 70 people and generated sales of 13.7 million euros in 2020. “Italianpack has been successful on the market for many years. We are looking forward to the collaboration in the traysealer business area, so that we can leverage our respective strengths in the best possible way to the benefit of our customers,” explain Christian Traumann, Group President of MULTIVAC, and Tomaso Petrini, Managing Partner (CEO) of Italianpack. As part of the collaboration, the smaller model series of MULTIVAC- branded traysealers manufactured by Italianpack will now be sold throughMULTIVAC’s global sales and service network. MULTIVAC has more than 85 subsidiaries and market coverage of 165 countries. ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) is being employed in the battle against weeds. SoilEssentials, the precision farming solutions pioneer, based in Angus, Scotland has harnessed expertise from the space industry along with agronomists and leading academics, to develop AI to overcome the green-on-green challenge. SKAi (The SoilEssentials KORE Artificial Intelligence platform, pronounced sky) has developed AI components which can be trained to recognise broad leaved weeds then take control of a crop sprayer to implement targeted control as the machine progresses through the crop. Dr Gregor Welsh from SoilEssentials, said: “The new SKAi technology operates in real-time, meaning there is no need to pre-map the field, the on-board AI is set-up to constantly scan the vegetation, identify and selectively treat the weeds as the sprayer boom passes over.” Trials of the system are showing high levels of success in the spraying of docks in grass fields and it’s foreseen that it will ultimately recognise and differentiate between a wide range of weed and cash crop species. POTATOwash water treatment and starch recovery company MSE Hiller is celebrating its 20th anniversary. MSE Hiller which was founded by Ivan Fomin and HuwThomas in 2001 has seen a huge change in the size and structure of the business over the years. From humble beginnings in a 25 m² room, MSE Hiller has since expanded into 800 m² purpose-built offices and 1,500 m² workshops at MarkhamVale in Derbyshire, where thousands of centrifuges are serviced and maintained every year. MULTIVAC is collaborating with Italianpack 20th anniversary celebration AI trials show success in weeds battle Haith Group has announced the appointment of John Nicholls as its new Operations Manager. Mr Nicholls has taken on a broad role, being responsible for the smooth running of planning and analysis, overseeing Haith’s production, parts, electrical, service and design supervisors, scheduling, and liaising with the company’s sales team. John joins Haith after two and half years at McCain Foods Limited, where he was Area Operations Engineer responsible for planning and estimating capital works projects, quality standards of engineering tasks and managing on-site contractors, amongst other areas of the business. Former McCain man takes up Haith ops role