New technology partners enhance FreshCloud, helping growers do more with less
FreshCloud, the core integrated digital platform from global agri-tech company AgroFresh Solutions, continues to leverage advanced technologies from the world’s best innovators, helping Australian and New Zealand growers and packers ensure quality, reduce waste and boost profit potential.
Data and digital lead Asia Pacific, Royce Sharplin, says leading technology partners have joined the extensive FreshCloud ecosystem – including Rubens (real time non-destructive fruit quality testing), Strella (storage monitoring and quality prediction), Escavox (smart supply chain tracking) and most recently, exciting technology from Neolithics (for non-destructive quality assessments at scale).
“Our ecosystem partners provide a raft of sophisticated tools which gather and feed data into FreshCloud for analysis and action,” Sharplin says.
“The platform has been purposefully designed to integrate technologies to gather critical information along the supply chain and give growers and packers full visibility and deeper control at every level.”
Quality control and waste management drive the way FreshCloud is transforming the Australian and New Zealand fresh produce industry.
“In an increasingly complex global supply chain, growers and packers need to do more with less,” Sharplin notes. “We’re now well on the journey to deploying new technologies such as those that enable larger fruit samples to be quality assessed in a non-destructive, waste-reducing way, right in the orchard.”
In the packhouse, FreshCloud documents and stores critical information and ripening data from digital partners, providing powerful insights such as recommending which controlled atmosphere (CA) rooms to open, with a focus on sending the most mature fruit to market.
Sharplin says growers and packers, including apple, berry, stonefruit and citrus producers from Australia and New Zealand, use FreshCloud data to determine optimal harvest timing, forecast volumes and assess quality at critical points throughout the process which informs decisions such as whether to store or distribute produce. Quality parameters such as colour and Brix define product suitability for export, while customised alerts flagging quality issues at any point help drive action to avoid potentially costly rejections.
FreshCloud has a straightforward approach to maintaining quality standards. It can be tailored to suit the needs of individual packhouses and the requirements of their end customers, including stringent export standards. It can integrate specific types of categories or operations and offers everything from automated reports and live dashboards to grower-centric summaries.
“A key feature is its ability to consolidate reporting, allowing the grower to see a summary of the individual process steps for their product – from the field to packhouse – in a single report, with minimal effort,” Sharplin says.
