Vietnamese Company Uses Robots to Stack Banana Cartons at Cambodian Packing Plant
Vietnamese company THACO AGRI uses ABB robots to stack banana cartons at its packing plant in Cambodia, with components supplied by THACO INDUSTRIES. Its planned 20,960-hectare Snuol complex is expected to receive more than VND 22 trillion in investment from 2024 to 2028.
On November 11, THACO AGRI’s partners visited a banana export packing facility at the Snuol complex in Cambodia’s Kratie province. Harvested bananas are brought to the facility by a pulley system. After preprocessing, washing, grading and packing, ABB robots pick up cartons from a conveyor belt and stack them in layers on pallets for shipment in containers.
The system reduces manual handling. Previously, palletizing required more than 20 workers at each plant; THACO AGRI has about five similar plants. THACO AGRI previously announced that ABB robots at its BP1.B banana facility began trial operations in 2024 and use IRC5 controllers. THACO INDUSTRIES also supplies components for the robots to adapt them to banana packing operations.
Trịnh Tuấn Kiên, deputy general director of THACO AGRI, said the company drew on its industrial production experience to help design and automate several stages of work at the packing facility. He said a major overseas fruit distributor had ordered the system for deployment in other countries.
Trịnh Tuấn Kiên, deputy general director of THACO AGRI.（VietVance）
THACO AGRI plans each banana production unit to cover about 800 to 1,200 hectares, divided into farms of about 300 hectares, with electricity, roads, irrigation, supply warehouses and packing facilities. Bananas are transported from growing areas to the packing facilities through a network of pulleys to reduce truck traffic within the farms.
The pulley system used to transport bananas on the farm.（VietVance）
Under its 2024–2028 plan, the Snuol complex covers 20,960 hectares, including 6,022 hectares for banana cultivation, with expected investment of more than VND 22 trillion (about US$850 million). THACO AGRI also announced a plan to generate VND 12.0778 trillion in banana export revenue in 2027; Trịnh Tuấn Kiên said the company aims to become one of the world’s five largest banana suppliers.
Source: VietVance
