Some supermarkets offer the option of having pineapple cleaned, freshly cut, and ready to take home.
People can choose whether they want it in slices, sticks, chunks, or blocks.
Who is catering to this request? A machine in the Fresh Produce department.
Giant Eagle and Gulf Coast Market are examples of brands that have invested in this tool. On their first day, on average, they sold 45 pineapples.
Pineapple is a delicious fruit but very complicated to cut. When displayed in refrigerators at the end of the day, it does not look fresh because the juice is visible in the container and has to be thrown away, Juan Pablo Aldana, Zummo’s U.S. Director of Business Development, told Abasto.
Isla is the machine that helps sell more pineapples in grocery stores. Aldana added that it can be right on the floor, inside the Fresh Produce department, or where ready-to-eat foods are. The latter, he said, means labor savings.
The investment in stocking it in the store recovered within a few months, as pineapple sales surpassed expectations.
Connecting the machine to an application on the cell phone makes it possible to monitor in which store and season it works best.
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Shinning design
Isla was launched in 2022 and won the IF Design Award in the Product Design discipline, Retail category two years later.
The IF Design Award is one of the most prestigious design awards in the world. It has been organized in Germany since 1954. By 2024, the year Isla won her award, there were 10,800 entries from 72 countries.
How does it work?
Isla is a user-friendly, easy, and intuitive machine designed to be operated by the consumer or a person from the fruit and vegetable department after Zummo training.
1. Place a plastic container for the fruit.
2. Place a pineapple on the top door, with the crown of the fruit facing up.
3. Select how you want to receive the pineapple.
4. Take out the container with the fruit and put a lid on it.
Pineapple? No hassle
15 seconds is the time it takes Isla to process a pineapple.
4 ready-to-eat pineapple options: slices, sticks, chunks, or a whole block without peel and core.
3 sizes of Isla pineapple: 9-10, 7-8, and 5-6 in diameter (inches).