Asmerom Abreha, owner of Kompas Quality Consultants, has years of experience in everything related to quality and safety of fruit and vegetables - from agronomic practices to postharvest quality management.
Over the years, working at different technical and management roles, he observed that there was no service in the industry that offered a complete package for quality control, Quality Assurance, and technical services specific to the fresh produce.
Kompas Quality Consultants, an independent Fresh Produce Quality consultants was founded to fill that gap by offering end to end complete package from Quality Control, Quality Assurance, Surveys & damage assessments, Food safety audit solutions, Farm audits & Field QC inspection, Agronomic and Postharvest advice throughout the entire supply chain from grower to retailer.
Asmerom Abreha.
Technical Advice
Imagine how many quality and social certifications are there in the markets (Global GAP, BRC, IFS, BIO, Social etc) that growers and other supply chain members have to comply to meet specific Quality Assurance programs creating a challenging situation for small-medium scale growers?
Asmerom cites the example of an avocado grower in Kenya who wants to export to the European market. “The avocado grower soon had to deal with various certificates which he needs to be able to supply his product,” Asmerom explains. “That sometimes involves 4 to 5 certificates per customer. Think of MRL, supplier declarations, Social Compliance, Global GAP, etc. The vast array of certifications, rules and quality requirements can get very confusing for such companies and then the question is how to achieve that level. At Kompas we have employees who have vast knowledge of certifications, quality requirements and controls. In this way we can provide the grower with advice on agronomic practices and postharvest treatments to achieve the requirements. With the services we offer, we can therefore completely unburden the grower in this field.”
Inspections and checks
As soon as the Kenyan avocado grower meets the stated requirements for avocados, exporting can start. Kompas offers customers on the European market the service to check the quality both before and after shipment of the products. We have our own employees and partners all over the world who check the cargo for the importers and customers before shipment. We advise our customers on the quality status of their purchase before shipments so that the customer can determine whether he wants to accept it or not.
"In Europe, where we have our office, we recheck the cargo if needed and review the necessary certification and look at possible claims and damage to the transportation.”
Research
Kompas also has an R&D department within the company. "If customers want to put a new product on the market or export to a new market, we check what is needed to guarantee the quality and safety of the fruit," Asmerom says. With ever changing MRL limits on the market, maintaining postharvest shelf life and meeting MRL regulations is a must. We support companies in achieving those targets through our research works.
Partnership AgriPlace platform
An increasing number of compliance documents are required for companies to deliver to their customers. To make this easier to manage, Agriplace Chain was launched in 2019 to make the management of compliance information easier and insightful for the sector.
AgriPlace offers an easy and automated way of working with compliance information through the platform AgriPlace Chain. Lately we see many companies contacting us because they want to spend less time on this process and have more insight in their supply chain ‘’says Nico Broersen of AgriPlace.“
"AgriPlace Chain in combination with Kompas, can offer a full service and takes care of the control and validation of the documents so that everything remains up-to-date. Every year, a company sometimes has to supply thousands of documents related to quality requirements. Although we can increasingly automate the request for the needed data, it will often remain necessary to carry out checks. Kompas can perform these checks, we offer the industry the possibility to make these certifications and documents digitally insightful and safe.”
For more information:
Asmerom Abreha
Kompas Quality Consultants
Tel: +31 (0)6 41506222
info@kompas-qualityconsultants.com
www.kompas-qualityconsultants.com
Nico Broersen
AgriPlace
Tel: +31 (0)6 13369752
ncm.broersen@agriplace.com
www.agriplace.com/chain