Supervision of pickers

Supervision of pickers is critical if damage to fruit during picking is to be minimised.

  • If using trains, pickers should be organised into groups according to ability to ensure pickers are not being ‘carried’ by others and causing bad feeling amongst the group. This will then make supervision easier and it is important that pickers should not be left without supervision for long periods.
  • If trains are not used, then the supervisor should be given a gang to oversee and ideally this should consist of about 10 pickers. If the gang is too big then the supervisor struggles to keep a close eye on each picker, as they ideally need to view a bin twice before it is full.
  • Supervisors should be capable of controlling the pickers with authority, but should be accessible and able to give advice while maintaining respect from the pickers.
  • Supervisors should brief their group at the start of each day, or as soon as practicable, to remind them of any key points found during the previous day’s picking.
  • To control pickers efficiently supervisors should have access to quality control (QC) assessments carried out at the packhouse/storage centre on each picker’s fruit.
  • The practice of combining the roles of supervisor and tractor driver should be avoided.
  • The picking supervisor is able to observe faults in the pickers working methods in the orchard and must be trained to do so.  Early detection and correction of poor picking practices will eliminate this particular cause of fruit damage.
  • Communication is crucial between all parties during picking. Pickers can become frustrated if there is too much ‘down time’ during the day and supervisors can become de-motivated if they are not kept up-to-date with information e.g. which orchard will be picked next and feedback of quality assessments.

Safety, health and hygiene

Before starting work all pickers should, as part of their induction, be made fully aware of safety, health and hygiene requirements necessary to meet HSE and Food Safety Regulations.

  • Any features of the site operation that could affect the picker or any other person present should be made known to the picker as part of the induction.
  • The location of toilets and hand washing facilities must be clearly indicated to the picker.
  • The location and name of the first aid person must be clearly available to the picker.
  • A hygiene notice embodying all the key legal health, hygiene and safety requirements must be handed to each picker, this should be read, understood (translation provided where required) and signed by the picker and returned to the management and filed against a register of pickers’ names.
  • Signs indicating the site safety, health and hygiene requirements should be clearly displayed where pickers will be aware of the requirements.
  • Extra safety considerations need to be made if a picking train is being used, and it is a good idea to devise a set of ‘rules’ e.g. no picker to approach the train when the tractor horn has been sounded.

Quality control in the orchard

A systematic approach to quality control (QC) in the orchard should be exercised, monitoring the performance of each picker against the required standard.

  • Periodic assessment of fruit picked by each picker should take place during the working day. Samples should be taken directly from the bins for this purpose.
  • An independent QC check on each picker’s fruit should be made the following morning when any bruising not evident on the day of picking will be identifiable. Some bruises may not appear until 12 hours after picking.
  • If fruit (as is likely) leaves the site for a central storage site, supervisors should sample and label a minimum of 50 apples from each picker’s bins and carry out an assessment the following morning.
  • Where trains are used, no one picker can be singled out, unless it is very clear that there is one picker who is picking below standard, so each gang must be treated as a whole, regardless of individual protests
  • Where an independent QC carries out a QC check the next day the results should be recorded and passed back to the orchard supervisor, who should take action accordingly.

Bin labelling for traceability

Traceability is crucial, and it starts in the orchard. Clear identification of critical information must be secured to the bin before it leaves the orchard.

Critical identification information, which must be traceable from when the bin leaves the orchard, is grower, orchard, cultivar, pick date and picker or gang.
It is important to remember that whatever system is used, it must be robust enough to ensure that even after handling the bin many times, the fruit is still traceable to the particular orchard in case of any residue/ contamination  issues.
There are various systems used by growers to identify bins.

  1. A label containing the above information. This is ideally a 3-part system, allowing one part to be affixed to the bin, one part to be handed to the picker (which acts as a receipt to guarantee payment) and the third part to be handed to the office for accounting and payment purposes.
  2. An identity label with a unique lot reference number that is supported by a reference document containing the essential information.
  3. An electronic system such as ‘Crop-Picker’ is a good way to record bins picked out in the orchard and then can be downloaded on a computer at the end of the day.
  4. Crop-Picker is supplied by Crop-Ware Ltd (www.cropware.co.uk)