Five challenges to running a profitable fresh produce business...and how automation can help
According to the Grocer, fresh produce businesses are facing a “perfect storm of challenges” tackling erratic weather and soaring input costs exacerbated by shocks including Brexit, Covid and the cost-of-living crisis. This blog explores how automation emerges as a key ally, bolstering success in this dynamic sector.
Over the last 5 years OAL has helped fresh produce businesses automate including key industry players such as Driscoll's, MM Flowers, Wealmoor, and Worldwide Fruit with a combined turnover in excess of £3bn.
Learn more about Worldwide Fruit’s journey here
Fresh Produce Challenges
1 - Limited labour availability
Key workers, essential during peak months, are limited in number by UK government rules for “Special Workers”. Automation can significantly boost productivity, offsetting these limits and upskilling local talent.
2 - Rising labour, raw material and energy costs.
Input costs have risen across the board. And with the minimum wage set to increase from £10 to £11.45, they’ll continue to rise in 2024. Automation can curb and even reverse the trend of rising costs in the industry.
3 - Supply chain complexity
Natural disasters and weather shocks mean businesses must maintain flexibility of supply and be able to react fast to any changes.
4 - Product diversification
Experimentation with new packaging formats to drive revenue and profitability with key targeting for snacking. Automation gives you the confidence to introduce more complexity like artwork variations as each can be easily tracked and verified.
5 - Retailer requirements
Retailers' stringent requirements for food safety, product integrity and traceability can be effectively met through automated solutions including vision.
Is automation and digitalisation the answer?
Whilst automation isn’t a “golden bullet”, it’s a key enabler. People are the heart of fresh produce businesses and it’s their ability to adopt and benefit from technology which is critical to success. At OAL we promise to make it easy to adopt new technologies, for instance, our best-in-class 24/7 support and training.
We’re big believers that modern fresh produce businesses will be digital (no paperwork), and integrated (systems talking to each other) and artificial intelligence (AI) will have a significant role to play.
Tackling labour availability and scarcity with a major productivity boost.
Creating a modern, digital working environment can empower shop floor operations and help recruitment. “Digital natives” prefer iPads and tablets to paper and pen, so will prefer a modern automated packhouse making recruitment an easier process!
Automation can also simplify and shorten workflows with a big impact on the bottom line. Take grower code changes. If you’re manually setting up printers, each grower change takes up to 5 minutes as an operator keys the information into the printer and stops the line. Multiplied by 30 changes per day across multiple lines, it can be a costly source of downtime. At the UK’s largest avocado packhouse, OAL has helped them reduce changeover times from 5 minutes to 2 seconds, a saving of approximately 10,000 hours per annum across all lines.
OAL customers have a “Grower Change button.” They simply load a SKU, and click the button to change the grower information from a pre-defined list on the fly!
But it doesn’t end there! With ERP integration, we can pull this information directly from the works order. Talk about a time saver!
Meeting and exceeding retailer requirements.
100% Packaging verification. Automation can help reduce human error, resulting in a higher-quality product that meets customer expectations consistently. The aim is 100% verification of all pack formats (flow wrapper, PLU, etc.)
For more information about how OAL can help you achieve 100% packaging verification, read our recent blog on “Top 10 AI Verification Quality Checks for Food Packaging”
Business agility with a single source of truth.
Change is a fact of life in the food industry! We can build the capability to react fast and effectively. By integrating systems together, fresh produce businesses can create a single source of truth. Any changes are instant and updated across all systems giving you confidence in your slick operations.
Want to learn more? Worldwide Fruit partnered with OAL in 2020 to automate its packhouse operations. Starting with label and date code verification, we’ve worked together to integrate their ERP system.
If you would like to discuss beginning, or enhancing your automation journey, please reach out to the OAL team today.
OAL are joint hosting an event with the University of Lincoln to talk about automation and sustainability. Interested? Register your interest here.