Vitacress is based near Andover in Hampshire and on arriving at its offices it is clear to see that this is an organisation that prides itself on quality.

The company, which was founded in 1950 with just one acre of watercress, is now a large operation with farms in three continents and has a £70 million turnover.

Priding itself on continuous innovation in the marketplace, Vitacress was the first in the UK to provide washed and ready watercress (1976), the first to offer bagged baby leaf salad, the first for out-of-season new potatoes in the UK and now, according to group agronomist Keston Williams, it wants to be the first to provide a fully integrated electronic system of traceability.

Williams has been working closely with the team at Muddy Boots to provide a system unique to Vitacress. He explains: “Traceability is so important in the industry ñ we are using it to not only make our business run more efficiently but to improve the quality of the produce we give to our customers.”

Jeff Goulding, sales director at Muddy Boots is delighted with the results that have been achieved. He says: “The work we are doing with Vitacress is exciting, it starts from the ground up ñ beginning with the planting of the seed right the way through.”

The system designed with Muddy Boots is tailor-made. Williams says: “We can trace everything that has ever happened to the crop through to the washlines. During the growing of the crop, everything is recorded from seed to harvest and captured by the system. Every pallet of freshly harvested produce is marked with a unique barcode; from this, everything that has happened to the product can be recalled by simply scanning the label. This label is then used to record further information, such as Quality Assurance scores. Full traceability is completed with a unique code that is printed on the final product ñ so the supermarket can quote this code and the entire history of the salad components within a bag can be traced.”

The origins of the concept can be traced back to 1999 when Vitacress used its first computer system, Cropwalker from Muddy Boots. This was used to audit all spray records and became a vital tool across Vitacress's 11 farms in the UK, Portugal and Kenya. Williams says: “In 2001, we again worked with Muddy Boots using its Produce Manager tool. Muddy Boots tailored the system to our needs so we can now offer full electronic traceability on all our produce.”

Goulding compares the efforts in combining the Cropwalker and the Produce Manager to writing a story. He explains: “When building the components of the system the Cropwalker was chapter one where we laid the foundations, once we combined that with the Produce Manager we had an amazing tool ñ we could follow the movements of the crop back and forth and were able to study the data at any point. Other companies have had trouble following processes back through the food chain but we have overcome this.”

The system incorporates Vitacress's quality assurance systems and analysis tools that look at the performance of the business. These include crop variety performance, how the role of the weather may affect quality and insect pressure. Williams explains: “Our business is not about improving yields we are constantly striving to improve our quality, this system also allows to access so much information with the touch of a button. What would take weeks to collate, takes just a matter of seconds.”

Goulding also believes that besides traceability the system has infinite value as a quality management tool. He says: “The tracking of the product is also important.”

Ninety per cent of Vitacress produce is grown on its farms and Williams explains the company is already working towards the next stage. “What we want to achieve next is to incorporate our third party suppliers into the system, who make up the remaining 10 per cent of our grower base,” he says.

Goulding stresses that the system can be used as a tool to enhance business. He says: “They will be able to use it to determine cost-saving measures, it will help the way Vitacress operates as a business.”

The system is clearly exciting the team at Vitacress as it continues to develop. Williams says: “The benefits of the system are clear ñ it provides confidence. The speed of analysis is vital and we have the ability to act on any issues immediately, giving our customers confidence in Vitacress. With traceability coming to the fore we have a great system in place.”

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