Fruits and data in global supply chain is a regular topic in industry circles. Transportation of fruits from farm for fork requires orchestra-like coordination with very careful attention to time and temperature.

The journey starts at the orchard during harvest. Depending on how advanced the farm is, the harvest process can be quite manual. A quick glance on Instagram highlights some harvesting activities in farms in Australia.

After harvest, truck loads of fruit are transported to the pack house where they are prepped for shipment. From disinfecting to quality control and segmentation, highly sophisticated pack houses ensure that the fruits are packaged and shipped off to the right target markets. 

From the pack house, depending on the location of the cold store, it is road hauled to the cold store where the temperature is set as required. For cases such as fresh citrus, particular attention is paid to the pre cooling levels again depending on the country of destination.

Once the cargo is containerised and transported to the sea port for onward shipment, the grower loses all visibility of the produce. Up until recently, growers will hope and pray for the good outturn of their produce. Today, technology has advanced such that you can now be notified regularly on the location and temperature of your produce in transit.

At delivery, in the event of damage to cargo, there is always dispute as to who is responsible for the damage suffered. To answer this question, a combination of methods are used including the opinion of an expert fruit surveyor, tracking data, temp tales and the legal intepretation of expert lawyers or recovery agents.

Data is key here and how we collect and present this data going forward will inform stakeholders about quality and handling of the produce in question.