Coffee manufacturers rely on QualySense robot

The startup QualySense from Opfikon in the Swiss canton of Zurich is developing a robot to automatically sort coffee beans at high speed. According to information from the company, the QSorter is one of the first robots in the world to combine 3D imaging, high-resolution spectroscopy, machine learning, and various data processing platforms to do so. This enables QSorter to examine the quality characteristics of 30 green coffee beans per second.

QualySense has now won over several globally active companies with its robot. According to a press release, these include the US coffee shop chain Starbucks, the Nestlé subsidiary Nespresso, Neumann Kaffee Gruppe from Germany, the Brazilian coffee specialist Cooxupé, and the Japanese drinks manufacturer Suntory. Together with the Dubai Multi Commodities Center (DMCC), a free trade zone in the United Arab Emirates, these companies are investing 1 million US dollars in QualySense. They also plan to implement the solution from Opfikon themselves.

QualySense states that QSorter will be launched on the market as early as summer 2022. The company is also working with Ferrum AG from Rupperswil in the canton of Aargau to make this a reality.

Francesco Dell’Endice, CEO and founder of QualySense, commented: “We are very honored and thankful to work with such world-leading coffee companies in advancing quality control and digital solutions for the coffee industry.” He added that the partners are contributing enormously to the QSorter project with their know-how and longstanding expertise.