Representatives from Enza, Zespri, a number of software developers, the NZ agriculture ministry and other large organisations within the fruit and vegetable sector have set up the Produce Industry Information Technology Standards Association (NZ). It will embrace producers, exporters, software developers, marketeers, distributors, retailers and all relevant government agencies.

The new body will be known as Piitsa and has been established to facilitate standards for the industry in IT in the wake of top-fruit deregulation last year. Pre-deregulation, Enza provided the service for the apples and pears sector.

The aim is to cut costs in the supply chain through making standards for the sharing of data available more extensively with the whole produce sector standing to gain from the development of a governing body.

Piitsa has its own charter and its aims are to boost the IT used by the industry, to provide industry resources, and to develop and promote guidelines and standards for commercial electronic data interchange.