Australian mango grower Manbulloo specializes in the Kensington Pride variety. Manbulloo wanted to improve the process of information flow in their supply chain, particularly the effectiveness and efficiency of communications and business operations between Manbulloo, their ripeners and their customers.
Scott Ledger, Quality Manager at Manbulloo says, “Our supply chain was fragmented and errors occurred during marketing as timely information was difficult to obtain, or we weren’t able to share it efficiently.”
Manbulloo Quality Manager, Scott Ledger at the Hilltop packhouse.
Manbulloo’s vision was to have one product identification and traceability system for the whole supply chain. One that each member could access. As well as a carton identifier that anyone in the chain could scan to identify the history of the fruit as the carton moved through the chain.
Marie Piccone, CEO at Manbulloo says, “What we needed was a ‘whole of chain’ information system that could be accessed by each member of the supply chain and information shared timely and accurately.”
Manbulloo already had GS1 barcoding embedded in their operations. It made sense to expand the use of the GS1 barcodes to provide improved communications and traceability up and down the supply chain. Ledger added, “The good thing was, because we used GS1, our supply chain partners didn’t need to upgrade or change their technologies. GS1 integrates with other systems including our crop management program and blockchain.”
For Manbulloo to achieve enhanced levels of communications and visibility throughout the chain, the trays also required unique identification. To address this, the mango giant switched their Freshtrack Gateway implementation to print GS1 serialised barcodes on their tray labels. This allowed every tray on every pallet from all seven Manbulloo farms and five pack houses to be tracked up and down the chain.
Manbulloo also utilised Freshtrack FieldOp, an application developed by FreshTrack Systems to complete quality checks on mangoes in the packhouses. FreshTrack’s solution collects the information and generates the GS1 barcodes on the fruit trays and directly uploads to a blockchain system, in real-time and without any loss in performance. Other companies involved in the Manbulloo initiative were Trust Provenance and Muddy Boots Software.
Trust Provenance provided Manbulloo with an integrity system that enabled all data points in the supply chain to be securely stored and accessed via the one platform. This data was secured by a distributed ledger infrastructure (aka blockchain) and made available to supply chain partners with permissions for who-sees-what.
Ledger says, “Using GS1 standards in conjunction with other technology solutions, we can now track every carton and every batch through the supply chain, from packing shed to retail shelf. Our order rejections at the retailer’s DC have reduced to very low levels. This is a major win for everyone in the supply chain as it saves an enormous amount of time and money.”
For more information:
Manbulloo
Tel: +61 (07) 3860 6990
Email: reception@manbulloo.com
www.manbulloo.com