Case Study La Linea Verde: Raytec Optical Sorting Success

The story of La Linea Verde: from farm to european leader

La Linea Verde is a family business with over 30 years of history, born as a spin-off of an agricultural company. Over time, thanks to steady growth and a strong innovation orientation, the company has today become the fourth European group in the fourth range sector.

With 8 production plants and a capacity of approximately 2 million products per day, La Linea Verde represents a benchmark in the production of fresh food for tables throughout Europe.

The challenges of the fourth range: safety and product quality

In the area of baby leaves and fresh ready-to-eat products, the challenges are particularly complex. Ensuring food safety, visual quality, and contaminant reduction is critical.

Among the main critical issues:

presence of natural contaminants (weeds, foreign bodies)

leaf defectiveness

need to maintain high hygiene standards

reduction of agricultural waste

Collaboration with Raytec: over 20 years of innovation

To address these challenges, La Linea Verde has established a collaboration with Raytec that has lasted for over 20 years.

This report led to the development of the first optical sorting machines specifically adapted to the fourth range sector. The collaboration between technology producer and end user was decisive in creating truly effective solutions.

Curiosity technology and the evolution of optical selection

One of the most advanced results of this partnership is Curiosity technology, now considered the top of the range.

Major innovations include:

greater ease of cleaning for high hygiene standards

advanced contaminant detection systems

dual chlorophyll technology to detect invisible green contaminants

This evolution allows us to intercept even elements that are difficult to distinguish, such as weeds, significantly improving the quality of the final product.

Results: more quality, less waste and greater efficiency

The adoption of Raytec technology has brought concrete benefits:

✅ Improving food safety

✅ Increased ability to detect defects and contaminants

✅ Reduction of agricultural waste

✅ Possibility of using less perfect but still safe raw materials

This approach allows not only to guarantee a better product to the consumer, but also to optimize the entire production process.

The future: sustainability and advanced quality control

Looking to the future, La Linea Verde is focusing on a key objective: sustainability.

Among the priorities:

reduction of energy consumption

decrease in the use of chemical products

continuous quality improvement

The most ambitious goal is to arrive at a system capable of analyzing the organoleptic characteristics of each individual product, up to offering a true quality certificate for each package.

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