Felix Instruments to Showcase New Tech Advances at Fruit Logistica 2020

Ground-breaking technologies for the avocado, mango and kiwi industries that make fruit maturity assessment easier than ever before will be highlighted at the global fruit industry's main event - Fruit Logistica - in Berlin, February 5-7. The Pacific Northwest-based tech innovator Felix Instruments will showcase its new suite of Near Infrared (NIR) Quality Meters for avocado, mango and kiwi, as well as its range of hand-held ripening room gas analyzers. With a deep 30-year history engineering plant physiology instruments for universities and government-funded research programs, Felix Instruments designs and manufactures gas analysis and NIR assessment tools for growers, breeders and distributors to obtain critical data from their fruit to reduce waste and generate more revenue from their commodities. With a simple push of a button, Felix’s NIR spectroscopy meters measure dry matter, Brix, and titratable acidity, in addition to external and internal color of fruits. The measurements are non-destructive and rapid, so many measurements can be taken – giving far more accurate assessments than more traditional methods. As a leader in agtech, the company sees Fruit Logistica as an ideal opportunity to build partnerships, share information and for all stakeholders in the fruit industry - from breeders to packers - to learn more about how NIR is changing the agriculture industry:  - F-750 Produce Quality Meter is useful for a wide range of fruits and vegetables.- F-751 Avocado Quality Meter  uses dry matter measurement as a measure of maturity and is tuned specifically for Hass avocados.- F-751 Mango Quality Meter works along the same principles as the Produce Quality Meter but is tuned for popular varieties of mangoes.- F-751 Kiwi Quality Meter is Felix’s newest instrument and is customized for varieties of kiwi and due for release early this year.  NIR Quality Meters are highly portable, meaning they can be used in multiple fields and the data collected is automatically populated into a database and visualized with Felix’s proprietary crop mapping software, FruitMaps.  Among competitors in the NIR market, Felix’s devices are considered best-in-class for fruit monitoring as they are the only NIR devices on the market that work in the field in variable weather conditions (full sun or cloudy conditions) - a considerable advantage over other NIR instruments.  "Our NIR instruments enable organizations at both ends of the agricultural spectrum – breeders and growers on one end and distributors and retailers at the other, to non-destructively measure the quality of their fruit," said Felix's Marketing Director Scott Trimble.  He added: "These tools are revolutionizing their respective industries because they can gain snippets of data in seconds compared to traditional methods of using many workers, associated lab equipment and several days of analysis."  For growers, the meters not only offer straight cost savings in the workforce and the elimination of destroyed fruit, but in addition, their use reduces guesswork and provides more data. Measuring more fruit, more often helps them make better decisions at harvest.  For breeders, NIR can help better determine how different applications of nutrients or herbicide affect fruit quality. For distributors, exporters and importers, NIR gives more visibility into the quality of the outgoing and incoming product, laying the groundwork for better decision making and cost-savings.  Trimble noted: "Every other NIR tool on the market is negatively affected by light leakage. Fruit are irregularly shaped, and this can lead to ambient sunlight entering the lens during the scan or the NIR light leaking out around the fruit. This means that while other NIR instruments may work in the lab under perfect lighting conditions, they fail in the field, right at the moment they’re needed most.  "Thanks to some very clever problem solving from our engineering team, our instruments have overcome this hurdle and can deliver accurate measurements in the field, in normal weather conditions, where no others can."  For more information about Felix's innovations, contact +01-360-833-8835, email: sales@felixinstruments.com or see them in action at Fruit Logistica, Fresh Produce Instruments booth, Hall 1.2 D12.   About Felix InstrumentsFelix Instruments brings “big data” to agriculture. Felix designs and builds measurement tools that help produce growers get to market sooner with a higher quality, more consistent product and post-harvest operations reduce waste and spoilage. Its core product lines focus on post-harvest gas analysis and pre-harvest near infrared analysis of dry matter and fruit quality. For 30 years, Felix Instruments has supplied universities, governmental organizations and commercial operations around the world with more innovative ways to collect and use their data.