“Internationalisation of automation within fresh produce trade”

In the past two years, Schouw Informatisering saw a remarkable increase in requests from the fresh produce market for international ERP projects. On the one hand from existing Dutch customers who want to automise branches abroad with the Dynamics ERP-based SI Foodware Fresh Produce. On the other hand from foreign fresh produce traders who show interest in the application, either directly or through their international SI Foodware partners. “More than 30 per cent of all requests and projects we are involved with have an international character nowadays,” says Commercial Manager Danny Cevaal of Schouw Informatisering.

According to Cevaal, a number of factors underlie this increased need: “Fresh produce traders increasingly open foreign sales offices to serve the local market. Additionally, Sourcing, and in particular Global Procurement, has much influence on this trend. The consumer wants to buy all kinds of fresh fruit and vegetables in supermarkets year-round. Therefore, produce has to be bought from countries with different harvesting periods and climate zones, mostly in the Southern hemisphere. The power of those suppliers has therefore increased sharply, for Europe is only one of their customers. They could also sell their harvest to emerging markets such as Asia. Gaining more control over the suppliers, controlling the beginning of the supply chain, has therefore become a major challenge. The role of fresh produce companies, especially importers, is therefore becoming increasingly international. For example, people open branches abroad, buy local trade offices, or enter into strategic partnerships with certain suppliers. Demand for an ERP solution that anticipates that is therefore also becoming more international.”

SI Foodware Fresh Produce is a very complete ERP solution, with extended warehousing functionality for international batch traders. It takes into account the requirements for working internationally. Examples are 24-7, multi-currency, multi-language, and local legislation. Besides supply chain integration, the service towards suppliers is of great importance. Suppliers (cultivators) can directly see purchasing orders, the status of their batch, receipts from parties, and receive feedback on the quality of batches via integrated portals. The cultivators can personally make changes as long as the order is still open.

Three automation strategies are mostly used for fresh produce traders. The first is a decentralised strategy, in which all international branches of a group are personally responsible for automation. Cevaal: “Within the international Total Produce group, for example, we have individually automised multiple organisations, such as Total Produce Rotterdam, Total Exotics Europe and Arctic Produce. Each of these companies has a unique position or product focus within the group, that also has a specific automation strategy.”

The second strategy is a centralised approach, where all branches work in exactly the same manner within the same database. A strategy that has been applied to, for example, SI Foodware Fresh Produce customer Capespan. People in eight different locations worldwide are now working in exactly the same manner with the same database. They therefore only have to maintain one database, and can quickly report on the performances of the entire group.

The third strategy is a core-approach. For this, the various (international) locations use a standardised basic design, that can be further designed as needed per location. Cevaal: “For example, you can anticipate the unique characteristics of local trade offices, suppliers, fresh produce supply and regulations. And yet you can consolidate the most important data, and report uniformly. Our customer Best Fresh Group works in this manner in multiple locations.”