What Woodside Electronics makes

Woodside Electronics Corporation, which trades as WECO, designs and builds optical color and defect sorting machines and moisture-monitoring systems for agriculture. The equipment removes defects and foreign material from harvested fruits and nuts and monitors moisture during drying, replacing the manual hand-sorting that growers and processors struggle to staff. WECO says thousands of its units are deployed across six continents.

The product range is organized by commodity. On the tomato side, WECO builds harvester-mounted color sorters, most recently the TomatoTek, which added RFID, GPS, wireless remote control, a driver's console, and data logging to the design that started as the Golden Streak. For tree nuts, it supplies line sorting and drying systems for walnuts and pecans, along with moisture-monitoring systems for walnut, pecan, hazelnut, and peanut products and for hops kilns. A full small-fruit line covers blueberries (the compact 360Tek Sortivator, which sorts by external and internal quality, color, size, and shape), cranberries, raspberries, olives, coffee cherries, and wine grapes. The company also resells and services Multiscan MXV X-ray inspection systems for finding internal defects and foreign material that a camera cannot see.

WECO frames the buying decision around outcomes rather than hardware. Its materials describe purpose-built systems engineered per commodity for a smaller facility footprint, higher throughput, and maximum uptime, and it runs an equipment lease program alongside outright purchase. That places it in the industrial equipment market for food processors rather than in commodity supply.

Ownership and history

Wayne Earl, a Stanford MBA in industrial engineering, founded Woodside Electronics in 1982 in Mountain View, California, after buying the rights to a tomato-sorter technology he had helped develop for Johnson Farm Machinery harvesters. The company soon moved to Woodland, California to sit closer to Johnson, and in 1990 its Golden Streak sorter shipped to Spain on Johnson harvesters, proving the concept and spreading to hundreds of machines. WECO developed Hi-Res Optical Sorting Technology in 1999 for walnut hulling and Xres Camera Technology in 2003 for in-shell walnut sorting, and it became a leading supplier to walnut hulling and drying lines.

Don Douglas purchased WECO from Earl in 2004 and broadened the line into pecans, olives, coffee cherries, wine grapes, and moisture monitoring. In 2020, WECO was acquired by Duravant, a Downers Grove, Illinois platform of engineered-equipment companies serving food processing, packaging, and material handling. Duravant announced the deal on February 10, 2020 and completed it on March 26, 2020, pairing WECO with Key Technology inside its optical-sorting group. Duravant is privately held and backed by the private-equity firms Warburg Pincus and Carlyle; a 2021 partnership between the two firms reportedly valued Duravant at roughly $5 billion. WECO remains headquartered at 1311 Bluegrass Place in Woodland, California, and marked its 40th anniversary in 2022.

Certifications and quality

WECO does not publish an ISO 9001, IATF 16949, or similar quality-management certificate on its website, so no certification is claimed here. The company does publish a California Transparency in Supply Chains Act disclosure. Buyers who require a formal quality-system certificate should confirm current status directly with WECO. For context on what these registrations mean in a manufacturing supply base, see our note on production part approval.

Known customers

WECO serves fruit and nut growers, hullers, packers, and processors rather than a small set of named accounts, and most customers are unnamed. One relationship is documented in the company's own materials:

Beyond that, WECO's most visible commercial tie is internal to the Duravant family: it sells, leases, and supports Multiscan Technologies optical sorters and inspection equipment across the United States, Canada, and Mexico under a 2024 partnership between the two sister companies.

Sourcing evidence

WECO's US import record fits a manufacturer that assembles finished sorting machines in California from specialized imported components. Customs bill-of-lading records show 125 US import shipments on file, with the most recent dated September 21, 2026, so the company is actively importing. The named foreign suppliers reinforce the story: the most active is Multiscan Technologies SLU of Spain, WECO's own Duravant sister company, followed by Guangzhou Xiongzhi Lighting of China, a source consistent with the LED illumination used inside optical sorters, plus Okey Ko and Sortek Sur.

Coverage caveats apply. These are US ocean-freight records only; air, truck, and rail movements do not appear, some records name freight intermediaries rather than manufacturers, and product categories come from declared manifest codes, which are noisy. Absence of a record is not evidence of absence. For buyers weighing where inspection and sorting equipment is built and sourced, the pattern here is a domestic assembler drawing on a mix of an in-family European supplier and Asian component vendors, a profile relevant to anyone evaluating nearshoring and tariff exposure.

Frequently asked questions

What does Woodside Electronics make?

Woodside Electronics Corporation, known as WECO, makes optical color and defect sorting machines and moisture-monitoring systems for agriculture. Its equipment sorts tomatoes, walnuts, pecans, blueberries, cranberries, olives, coffee cherries, raspberries, and wine grapes, and monitors moisture for nuts and hops kilns. It also resells Multiscan X-ray inspection systems.

Who owns Woodside Electronics?

WECO has been a wholly owned operating company of Duravant since 2020. Duravant is a global engineered-equipment platform based in Downers Grove, Illinois, backed by the private-equity firms Warburg Pincus and Carlyle. WECO was founded by Wayne Earl in 1982 and owned by Don Douglas from 2004 until the Duravant acquisition.

Where is Woodside Electronics located?

WECO is headquartered at 1311 Bluegrass Place, Woodland, California 95776, in the Sacramento Valley. The company was founded in Mountain View, California in 1982 and relocated to Woodland to be near Johnson Farm Machinery, a tomato-harvester maker.

Who are Woodside Electronics' customers?

WECO's customers are fruit and nut growers, hullers, packers, and processors, and most are unnamed. Payne's Pecans of Rich Hill, Missouri is a documented customer of its Multiscan X-ray inspection system. WECO also sells and supports Multiscan optical sorters across North America under a Duravant intra-family partnership.

Does Woodside Electronics hold any quality certifications?

WECO does not publish an ISO 9001, IATF 16949, or similar quality-management certificate on its website, so none is listed here. It does publish a California Transparency in Supply Chains Act disclosure. Buyers who require a formal certificate should confirm current status directly with the company.

How long has Woodside Electronics been in business?

WECO has operated since 1982 and celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2022. It developed harvester-mounted tomato sorting in the 1980s, Hi-Res Optical Sorting Technology for walnuts in 1999, and Xres Camera Technology for in-shell walnut sorting in 2003, and it has been part of Duravant since 2020.

Last verified September 28, 2026. Is this your company? Request a correction.