The Genus Echo detects a wide range of internal defects, including: watermelon internal defects — hidden impacts, overmaturation, and hollow heart; avocado internal defects — internal browning, vascular browning, bruising, rot, cooling damage (chilling injury), immaturity; mango internal defects — internal browning, jelly seed, soft nose.

No. The Genus Echo is entirely non-destructive. The system utilizes magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to capture a complete, high-resolution 3D internal image of each fruit as it passes intact through the scanner.
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Because MRI uses magnetic fields to interact with the fruit, and is completely free of ionising radiation, it does not affect the fruit. The internal tissue, flavor profile, and shelf-life remain completely unaltered. Fruit is scanned and sorted in real-time, exiting the system in its original, pristine condition.

The Genus Echo operates at industrial production speed, scanning fruit inline without slowing the line or requiring manual handling.

The Genus Echo is currently optimised for watermelons and avocados. We are looking for innovation leaders to explore additional fruit varieties.

Optical and NIR (near-infrared) methods inspect only the surface or a few millimetres beneath the skin. MRI differs, as it is able to provide a full 3D view of the internal structure, detecting defects that optical methods cannot see; including hollow heart in watermelons and internal browning in avocados before it is visible externally. Read more about how these and other technologies work for fruit quality control here.

Yes. The Genus Echo is designed for inline integration with existing packing and sorting lines, with classification parameters customisable to your quality standards.

The Genus Echo sees from skin to core without touching the fruit. For watermelons, it detects hollow heart, hidden impact damage, and over-maturation — the three defects that cause the most retailer claims and cannot be caught by any surface-level technology. For avocados, we detect internal browning, vascular browning, cooling damage, rot, and early germination. For mangoes: internal browning, jelly seed, and soft nose. And the detection is customisable — if your priority defect isn't on that list, we configure the model around what matters most to your buyers.

Yes. The Genus Echo usually can work at a fruit producer’s line speed. We work with each producer to ensure their classification needs are met.

The Genus Echo solution is highly customizable to our customers' needs; costs are based on product scope and requirements.

The Genus Echo integrates into your existing conveyor line. The classification output is fully customisable to match your internal grading standards, so it talks the same language your line already uses.

JimboFresh, a leading watermelon producer in Spain under the Jimbee brand, is the first commercial deployment. Their CEO, Miguel Ángel, states: "We move from skilled guesswork to near-perfect precision." They're not a pilot customer. They're a company that moves a sector, and they chose to be first.

Read our first installation press release.

MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) is the only technology that provides a full 3D view of the internal structure of the fruit tissue without making any contact or causing any damage. Unlike optical sorting or NIR, which read only the surface or a few millimetres beneath the skin, MRI maps water distribution and tissue structure throughout the entire fruit — making it capable of detecting internal browning, bruising, and soft tissue damage before any external signs appear.

At an industrial scale, Orbem's Genus Echo applies AI-powered MRI inline on packing and sorting lines for watermelons, avocados, and mangoes. It detects defects including internal browning, vascular browning, cooling damage, and bruising in avocados, and hollow heart and hidden impact damage in watermelons — all without cutting, sampling, or slowing the line.

X-ray is well-suited to detecting density anomalies and foreign objects, but it has a structural limitation when applied to fresh produce: biological tissue — especially water-based defects like internal browning, rot, or over-maturation — produces very little contrast in X-ray imaging because the density differences between healthy and defective tissue are minimal.

MRI addresses this directly. Because MRI measures water content and tissue composition rather than density, it produces high-contrast images of soft tissue variation — the exact detail needed to grade agricultural produce by internal quality. It detects defects that are invisible to X-ray, including early-stage browning, vascular damage, cooling injury, and germination in fruits like avocados, mangoes, and watermelons.

Orbem's Genus Echo is currently the only commercially deployed AI-powered MRI system for inline fruit grading. It integrates into existing packing lines and provides customisable classification outputs aligned to each producer's quality standards. Read more about how the technologies that work for fruit quality control here.

Several technologies are used for non-invasive food quality inspection, each with different capabilities and trade-offs:

• MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) is the only technology that produces a full 3D image of internal fruit structure, making it uniquely capable of detecting defects regardless of their depth or the fruit's external appearance. Historically limited to lab settings due to throughput constraints, MRI has been industrialised for inline inspection by Orbem, whose Genus Echo system operates at commercial packing line speeds. JimboFresh, one of Spain's leading watermelon producers with over 38,000 tonnes marketed annually, deployed the Genus Echo in 2026 as its primary quality control system, making it the first commercial-scale internal inspection deployment in fresh produce.
• Near-Infrared (NIR) is the most widely deployed. It's fast, cost-effective, and reliable for surface properties like sugar content and dry matter. It reads only a few millimetres beneath the skin, so it cannot detect deep internal defects.
• Hyperspectral imaging offers detailed surface and shallow subsurface analysis and is increasingly integrated into high-speed sorting lines. Like NIR, it infers internal quality from surface spectral signatures rather than imaging the interior directly.
• X-ray provides depth penetration and is effective for detecting foreign objects, pits, and density-based anomalies. It struggles to differentiate water-based biological defects: browning, rot, soft tissue damage, because healthy and defective tissue have similar densities.

The right technology depends on the defect type: surface and shallow defects are well served by NIR or hyperspectral; complete internal defect detection requires MRI.

Read a more detailed explanation on fruit quality control technologies here.