First Serbian combine for picking raspberries

(Srbobran Petrović and Slobodan Živković)

With the help of his friend Slobodan Živković, Srbobran Petrović, an engineer of electronics from village Đurinci near Mladenovac, saved both himself and raspberry growers. He made the first raspberry picker that will cut the costs of fruit picking to a minimum. The machine is powered by gas and it can substitute several people at work.

The raspberry growers in Serbia do not have to fear any more whether the prices of their products will be competitive because they will not have to pay high wages to raspberry pickers.

The first picking with this combine will be done this year on several hectares of raspberry. The owners of this powerful machine hope the success will be even bigger than the one they achieved with the shaker. The first machine this engineer made was fruit tree shaker. So far he has sold about 50 of them all around the world. The machine costs 13,000 EUR, while the price of similar foreign machine is 10 times higher.

Petrović did not get any financial aid, either from bigger companies, banks or the state, so that he invested the money he earned from his previous invention in the new development project.

- We were watching neighbors raspberry growers experience problems with pickers. They can not find them during the season and, when they eventually find them, their wages are much too high - says Petrović.

- We put much effort and invested significant amount of money in development of these machines, and it took us three years, which is a lot of time. If we had a credit support from the banks, we could have finished the project earlier and start the assembly-line production of combines - said Petrović.

- Such solutions exist in the world, but the problem has always been the fact that the foreign machines are much more expensive than the ones locally produced and they are never adapted to the needs of Serbian manufacturers. Concretely, when it comes to raspberry or blackberry picker, foreign machines can not go downhill and reach the fruit plantations that can be found at incredible places in Serbia. In addition, foreign machines are expensive. Dutch machine similar to our combine costs about 130,000 EUR - Petrović adds.

The price of combine has not been determined yet, but it is most likely that it won't cost over 40,000 EUR. The machine is small and very mobile, so that, if it proves good in this year's picking, assembly-line production will start.

Petrović also mentioned the possibility of renting the machine.

- Manufacturers can pay the rent for the machine in raspberries, under very favorable conditions - he adds.