Why not? Is the problem really just naive color identification? It looks more like classifying uniformity, shape, size, orientation, character imprint, malformation, anomalous objects, etc. Can the problem be solved with a more traditional image processing toolbox? Sure, why not? But what fun is there if we're not swinging HN's favorite rubber mallet at the problem...and then doing it again and again just because.

Keeping with the context of the GP's remark, a solution is more about achieving process speed while minimizing error and human intervention in the face of uncertainty--i.e. single-shot at the package level, which is at least a 50x speed increase over individual mechanical sorting.