Since 1949, Capital City Fruit has been a grower and supply chain manager of fresh fruits and vegetables based in Iowa. With the industry continuing to push for more traceability; especially with the amount of repacking within their operation, they were in search of a robust inventory management system to do just that.
“I originally heard about Produce Pro in the late 90’s at a produce convention. And, as I went to conventions over the years, I noticed the customer logos on Produce Pro’s trade show booth kept growing and businesses we knew were being added,” commented Christian Comito, CEO, Capital City Fruit.
“In 2009, we considered Produce Pro when we installed our first inventory management system. In fact, we used a decision matrix where we scored each software company based on features and Produce Pro scored the highest, but at the time, we chose another option. Now, after less than ten years, when it came time to find a new software system, we knew just who to call.”
Christian Comito added, “Produce Pro has good systems but they also have good people. A lot of their staff have worked within the produce industry in the past and truly understand the intricacies of produce; especially their trainers which is completely different from other software companies we’ve looked at previously. I was also impressed by the company’s longevity. This really sets them apart from the other software that’s available.”
“Their implementation process prepared us for the transition. I like that they have an orientation for senior leadership to learn about the business and find areas that might affect processes, so we could start changing those processes before the software went live, commented Christian Comito. “Not to mention, our implementation process was actually fun! The staff all have a great sense of humor and were willing to be light-hearted with our team when we needed a break from training or a stress reliever.”
“I also cannot say enough about the entire Produce Pro team. The level of support is exceeding my expectations. Any time, day or night, they are there to provide guidance and help answer questions,” exclaimed Sean Overholser, production manager, Capital City Fruit.
Since going live with the system just a few months back, Capital City Fruit said it has already realized several improvements throughout their operation.
Brendan Comito, COO, Capital City Fruit explained, “Produce Pro enables us to accurately track the input product and what outputs are produced from that input product. We also have much better reporting that allows us to find and fix inventory issues in real time.”
“The shipment reports are much easier to build in Produce Pro which saves me time each day,” commented, Marc Newman, transportation manager, Capital City Fruit.”
Overholser added, “Immediately upon switching to Produce Pro we have found the entire repack module to be extremely easy to use. We’ve increased our efficiency with label management as well as repack accuracy several times over. Repacks that used to take 10-15 minutes each are now processed in under a minute. Label format selection is automatic and also super simple. Produce Pro is so fast and reliable.”
“Next up, we’re planning to implement Produce Pro’s Warehouse Management System. We think this will enable us to get an even better handle on our inventory and improve our shipping accuracy, so we are looking forward to the enhancement of our system and continuous improvement of our operation even more so into the future,” concluded Brendan Comito.
For more information:
Kristen Santangelo
Produce Pro
Tel: +1 (630) 395-9600