DMS Pukepack

For the last 6 weeks we've worked at DMS, a kiwi packhouse, in Te Puke. We did nightshift from 7.30pm to 6.30am.
Jake was a grader and Isi the grading supervisor. Graders stand at their own grading table as the kiwi fruit rolls past them quite fast (see last picture). They have to look at all the fruit and then sort it into three different grades. Grade 1 is perfect fruit, that gets exported to the rest of the world. This fruit stays on the belt and goes to packing. Grade 2 is fruit that is still acceptable but not perfect. Graders have to pick those fruits out and put them on another belt. These kiwis get collected and are mostly being sold in NZ. Grade 3 is reject fruit. The graders have to find those kiwis and throw them down the reject chute into the bin.
Isi as the supervisor was telling the graders what to look out for in each grower, checking on the graders, trying to make the grade better and doing checks on grade 2 and reject fruit.
We had a great team of graders (picture 1) and met lots of lovely people from all around the world. In picture 2 and 3 are the boys from Bali and on picture 4 Sukhdeep and Charlotte from India.Read more