How are trends like digitization and data processing effectively applied within fruit and vegetable companies?

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By adding IT solutions, we want to contribute to maintaining the global pioneering role of the Dutch fresh produce industry. That is why we continuously look at trends, the influence it has on the industry and how we as JEM-id deal with this, this time we discuss: 'Digitization and data'.

Future proof development: Speaking with the Fresh Produce team

Both digitization and business intelligence (BI) even seem to outgrow the early adopter stage. Both factors are part of the strategic agendas of almost every company in the fresh produce industry. The emergence of low-code platforms, the mature cloud infrastructure and the addition of sensor-based data provides many different new possibilities.

More efficient production, more transparency and food safety through the use of digitization
With the rise of business intelligence and new IT solutions, more and more fruit and vegetable companies are investing in digitization. Robotization and digitization, however, make processes more complex, due to the large scale on which production takes place. Digitization and technology ensure that this is made possible and software and data help with predictability to make schedules. This combination ensures that higher productivity can be achieved on production lines.

Because the investment in digitization is a lot lower compared to, for example, a reorganization of the warehouse, a new production line or upscaling, the threshold is relatively low to respond to this trend. Transparency is also a "hot topic" today, in which digitization helps to safeguard food safety issues.

Examples of the use of data technology in the agri-food sector
Unilever will monitor palm oil plantations to combat deforestation. The food company wants to make products more environmentally friendly with data from GPS satellites, which track locations of telephones. This is especially true for palm oil, where logging still takes place regularly during production. To prevent this, Unilever is collaborating with the American startup Orbital Insight.

Data technology is not only used to optimize business processes, but also to predict food safety hazards. All kinds of internal and external factors influence the risks in the food chain, such as hygiene during transport, the quality of supervision during the production process, the quality of raw materials, but also the climate and economic factors such as trade flows and prices. “By linking and analyzing real-time information worldwide, we can take action on time if our food safety is at stake,” says Dr Willem Jan Knibbe, policy director of the Wageningen Data Competence Center (WDCC). "In Wageningen, we are investigating to what extent new technologies in the field of artificial intelligence, in particular Bayesian Networks, can be used in predicting food safety hazards." The researchers are trying to automate this approach because of the high degree of labor intensity. These techniques and algorithms can then be used in subsequent projects.

Also within GreenCommerce we are looking at how we can convert the large amounts of data into valuable advice or forecasts. With the Datawarehouse package from GreenCommerce, data from the system is converted and processed into a BI dashboard, such as Power BI. This allows fresh produce companies to quickly find the right strategy.

Cloud computing
We can no longer close our eyes to it; the use of cloud platforms by companies. More and more fresh produce companies are starting their own IT projects through cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft's Azure. Cloud computing means that all software tools and applications are within reach of the end users. Various IT services are offered via the internet, such as servers, databases and software. This gives end users a lot of flexibility because data can be stored and accessed anytime, anywhere. A trend that we also see happening in the fresh produce industry. And that is not surprising; the use of cloud computing has many advantages. It offers flexibility, can be implemented quickly and is scalable immediately. With GreenCommerce Essentials, we offer the basic functionalities of GreenCommerce.NET via a server in the cloud. As a result, small(er) fruit and vegetable companies do not have to purchase an expensive server and it is immediately scalable, so that these companies can start quickly. GreenCommerce Essentials is an example of Software as a Service (SaaS), a term we described earlier in this blog.

For more information about GreenCommerce Essentials, contact us via info@greencommerce.nl or call +31 174 - 642 622.