Fruit and Vegetable Netting Machines: The Definitive Professional Guide

In a packhouse, mesh packaging looks like the simplest step on the line, and it is precisely where the problems nobody notices pile up until the peak of the season arrives: uneven nets, metres of reel ending up on the floor, a station that needs two people on the busiest days, and a shelf presentation that varies from one pallet to the next. The netting machine solves all of that at once, and choosing the wrong one costs you for the next ten years.

At Fontanet Group we have spent 14 years supplying packaging machinery and consumables to the agri-food sector from Fraga, in Huesca, with a team that brings together more than 30 years in the industry and our own technical service with branches in Aragón and Catalonia. This guide gathers what production managers actually ask when they consider automating their mesh packing: what each level of automation really does, what the practical difference is between a semi-automatic and an automatic machine, which netting each machine takes, which model fits which produce, and what you need around it so the line does not jam somewhere else.

You will not find a sales sheet for a single model here. You will find the four we distribute —REK 140, MEL110, MEN110 and KUK-900— compared against each other, using the same criteria we apply when we walk into a plant and have to say which one fits. Including the uncomfortable answer: sometimes the one that fits is the cheapest.

What is a netting machine and what is it used for?

A netting machine is a packaging machine that feeds produce into tubular netting, cuts it to the size of the format and closes the pack, all in a single cycle. Put like that it sounds trivial; what is not trivial is doing it fifty times a minute for eight hours without a single unit coming out different from the last.

The cycle always has the same four stages, whatever the level of automation. First the produce arrives already dosed, in a basket or weighed by the line scale. Then the netting, which comes on a reel, opens and forms around the load. Next the pack is closed: with a clip band, a metal clip or a self-adhesive label that acts as closure and identification at the same time. And finally it is cut and the finished unit comes out. What tells one machine from another is how many of those stages it handles on its own, and at what rate.

Netting is used because it solves three things no other pack solves at once. It ventilates: fresh produce keeps respiring after harvest, and a sealed pack generates condensation that speeds up ripening and starts rot. It lets you see: the buyer judges the piece without opening anything, and so does the quality operator. And it weighs and costs very little per unit packed, considerably less than a flow wrap or a preformed bag, something that shows up in the season's bottom line on a product with tight margins.

Who uses them: citrus packhouses, potato, onion and garlic growers, stone and pome fruit cooperatives, exotic fruit handling operations, shellfish purification and packing plants, and wholesale market traders. In Spain, the European Union's leading exporter of fresh fruit and vegetables, mesh packing is a standard taken for granted in practically every producing region: Valencia and Murcia in citrus, Castilla y León and Andalusia in potato and onion, the Ebro valley in stone fruit, Galicia in shellfish.

Types of netting machine by level of automation

The range is ordered by a single variable: how much work the operator does and how much the machine does. That gives three steps —semi-automatic, automatic and high-output automatic— and the choice between them depends not on the budget available but on the peak of the season, which is a very different figure from the annual average.

MEN110 semi-automatic netting machine

This is the first-step machine. If you currently net by hand, the MEN110 multiplies the rate and, above all, makes the result consistent, without demanding the investment or the floor space of an automatic line. It suits medium production, operations with a sharp season where the machine works hard for two months and rests the remainder, and operations that change format often: the changeover is quick because there is an operator in front of it making the call.

It is also the right choice —and this is rarely said— when the produce is delicate. With the piece passing through someone's hands before it enters the netting, waste on soft fruit drops. An automatic machine is faster, but it does not look.

MEL110 automatic netting machine

The practical difference from the MEN110 is not only speed, it is how much labour it ties up. On the semi-automatic there is one operator per machine; on the automatic, one operator can look after the line. When the problem is not buying the machine but finding people in September, that distinction is worth more than any output figure.

Touchscreen control adds something you come to appreciate in daily use: the parameters of a format are stored. Going back to last week's reference no longer depends on the operator who set it up being there.

REK 140 netting machine: the packhouse standard

This is the packhouse machine running in series: citrus, potato, onion and garlic, with the ventilation and the presentation fresh produce demands. The stainless steel is not a finishing detail, it is a working condition: these machines are cleaned daily in wet environments and with produce that sheds soil and sap.

The clip band closure deserves a comment. Against a metal clip, the band avoids metal foreign bodies on the line —something retail specifications and downstream metal detectors both appreciate— and it takes batch and size printing. Against a self-adhesive label, it stands up better to cold store humidity.

There is honest small print to those 50 baskets a minute: real output depends on the size of the piece and the netting format. A machine that does 50 on medium-calibre onion does not do the same on pomegranate. That is why, before sizing anything, we prefer to see the produce.

KUK-900 netting machine: high output

This level only makes sense with an entire line sized to match it. Installing a high-output netting machine behind a weigher that cannot feed it at rate, or in front of manual palletising, does not raise production: it moves the jam somewhere else and leaves an expensive machine waiting. When someone asks us for the KUK-900, the first thing we look at is not the netting machine, it is what comes before and after it.

Comparison table: MEN110, MEL110, REK 140 and KUK-900

The outputs in the table are the nominal catalogue figures. On the plant floor, the real rate is set by the size of the produce, the netting format and, almost always, the machine in front.

Netting types compatible with netting machines

The machine and the consumable are a single system. You can get the netting machine right and the reel wrong, and the result on the shelf is exactly the same as if you had got the machine wrong. These are the families the range works with.

Knitted or raschel netting

Interlaced polyethylene threads forming an open mesh structure with high tensile strength. This is the one that carries weight: potato, onion and bulb sacks in large formats, where the load pulls on the pack throughout handling and stacking. It gives the produce plenty of air and stands up well to the abrasion of palletising.

Extruded netting

Obtained by extruding polyethylene into a continuous tube, with a more regular grid and a smoother feel than knitted netting. It is the usual choice for consumer formats —one to five kilos— and for round, regular pieces: orange, lemon, mandarin, onion, commercial-grade potato. Being smoother it marks the skin less, which makes it the first option for fruit with a sensitive epidermis.

Colour serves a commercial purpose as well as an aesthetic one: orange for oranges, yellow for lemons, red for onions and green for limes are codes retailers take for granted and that visually reinforce the produce inside the net.

Plant-based netting and regulatory pressure

The European packaging and packaging waste regulation is pushing the sector towards plant-based materials, and retailers have moved ahead of the law in their specifications. It is a real transition and worth preparing for early, but with one technical warning: these materials do not behave like polyethylene under tension or when cut. Compatibility with a given netting machine has to be verified with the specific netting reference, not assumed.

Our practical recommendation: before committing to a large reel purchase, run a trial through your machine with your produce. We will arrange it.

Which netting machine fits each product

Every product poses a different problem: some demand speed, others gentleness, others a pack that holds weight. These are the combinations we install most often.

Citrus: orange, lemon, mandarin

This is the product that defines the category. A round, regular piece with tough skin and a long season at high volumes: the ideal case for automating without caveats. The REK 140 is the packhouse standard here, and the MEL110 the option when volume is high but the line is shorter. Extruded netting in the colour of the species, one to five kilo formats, and a printed clip band closure that handles sealing plus size and batch identification at once.

Potato, onion and garlic

Tough produce, high turnover, and formats running from the one-kilo shelf pack to the large sack. It takes the machine's maximum rate with no quality penalty, so the choice is driven by volume alone: REK 140 for continuous series, KUK-900 when the whole line is sized for high output. Knitted netting for heavy formats; extruded for consumer packs. A note from the field: these products bring soil into the machine, and that turns daily cleaning and access to components into a purchasing criterion, not a detail.

Stone fruit and delicate produce

Nectarine, tomato and soft fruit in general. Here speed stops being the main variable: the cost of a bruise far outweighs the saving of going faster. The semi-automatic MEN110 and the MEL110 with the cycle tuned down are the sensible options, with fine extruded netting to minimise skin marking. This is the clearest case in which recommending the fastest machine would be bad advice.

Shellfish and exotic fruit

Mussel, clam and oyster have their own netting format, specific to aquaculture, and they work in an environment of constant humidity where stainless steel and ease of cleaning matter more than in any other application. In exotic fruit —avocado, kiwi, mango— small presentation formats and a wide range of references dominate, terrain in which the changeover flexibility of the MEN110 and the MEL110 pays off better than raw speed.

How do you choose the right netting machine?

These are the five questions we ask when we visit a plant, in this order. Answering them in order avoids almost every expensive mistake.

1. How many units do you need at the peak, not on average? A machine sized on the annual average falls short in precisely the three weeks that matter. The peak of the season is the figure that governs.
2. How many people can you put on packing that day? This is the question that really separates semi-automatic from automatic. If finding staff during the season is the problem, the automatic pays for itself sooner than it looks.
3. What is your produce like? A firm, regular piece takes maximum rate. Soft fruit calls for control. Heavy formats call for knitted netting and a pack that holds under tension.
4. What do you have before and after it on the line? The netting machine does not work alone. If the weigher cannot feed it or palletising is manual, moving up the range does not raise output: it just moves the jam.
5. How many different references do you run? Frequent format changes favour the flexible machine; a single reference in series favours the fast one.

With those five answers the choice almost makes itself. And when it turns out the machine you need is the smallest in the range, we say so: selling above what is needed is the fastest way to lose a customer next season.

Maintenance and technical service

A netting machine is a repetitive-cycle machine working in a wet environment, with produce that sheds soil, sap and plant debris. Maintenance is not optional: it is what separates an uneventful season from a breakdown on the busiest day.

Preventive work concentrates on four points. The cutting elements, which as they lose their edge leave the netting frayed before failing outright and give plenty of warning if anyone is looking. The reel drive rollers, where uneven wear throws off the tension and produces nets of varying length. The position sensors, which with accumulated dirt start giving false cycles. And cleaning the produce path, which on potato and onion is daily and non-negotiable.

The profitable moment to service is before the season, with the machine stopped and time to order a spare. The emergency call-out, with the line full of fruit and the lorry waiting, costs several times more even if the engineer's invoice is the same.

At Fontanet Group the supply of the machine comes with a full service: preliminary engineering, installation, commissioning, operator training and subsequent maintenance, with our own technical service across Spain and branches in Aragón and Catalonia. Training is not a formality: most of the faults we attend in the first weeks are matters of setting, not of the machine.

Equipment around a mesh packing line

The netting machine is one station within a line. These are the machines around it that determine whether its nominal output becomes real output.

• Weigher with metal detector: doses the exact weight before netting and rejects foreign bodies. It is the machine that sets the real rate: if it cannot feed, the netting machine waits.
• Automatic labeller: origin, size, weight, batch, barcode and PLU. In many formats the label also acts as the pack closure.
• Automatic strapping machine: consolidates the boxes of netted produce before palletising.
• Automatic palletiser: closes the line. It is the point where people most often discover the bottleneck was never at the packing station.
• Case sealer: the step before the pallet on closed-case lines.
• Netting, bands and consumables: continuous supply of the right consumable, which is where the cost per unit packed is decided.

You can see the full range in our catalogue of packaging and packing machinery.

Frequently asked questions about netting machines

Why choose Fontanet Group

We have spent 14 years supplying packaging machinery and consumables from Fraga, in Huesca, with a team that brings together more than 30 years in the industry. Being inside a producing region is not a contact detail: it means we know the seasons from the inside and that when something stops, the engineer arrives the same day.

• Complete range across the four levels of automation, from semi-automatic to high output.
• Full service: preliminary engineering, installation, commissioning, operator training and maintenance.
• Our own technical service across Spain, with branches in Aragón and Catalonia.
• Machine and consumable from one supplier: the netting machine, the netting, the band and the label. When something goes wrong, there is nobody to pass the blame to.
• Advice on the whole line, not on a single machine: weighing, labelling, strapping and palletising.
• A demonstration with your produce before you decide, because size and firmness matter more than the data sheet.