What has AgroFresh been focusing on in recent months?
Daniel Manriquez: As always, AgroFresh continues to innovate and implement new tools and technologies for the industry that help keep produce fresh, reduce food waste and conserve resources. For example, we’ve done important work this year to help the avocado industry, improving post-harvest life in pre-ripened avocados using a range of solutions from our extensive portfolio.
We’re perhaps most excited about the advancements we’ve made with FreshCloud. FreshCloud is our proprietary digital technology services platform that provides a real-time produce command centre for our customers, combining the AgroFresh service model with aggregated historical data, artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide the most complex and comprehensive technology platform in the produce industry.
It’s incredibly exciting to see how FreshCloud Quality Inspection and FreshCloud Harvest View are beginning to impact the industry, using data to help make critical decisions on produce quality, harvest timing, packing, storage and market conditions. The advancements these systems could provide are truly significant for the produce industry.
How has Covid-19 affected the market for you products?
DM: If anything, these uncertain times have enhanced the need for our services. SmartFresh, for example, has been an essential tool to help our customers manage their inventories and reach their markets with the highest level of quality.
For example, we heard from a customer in Mexico that SmartFresh helped him manage his tomato inventory while there were restrictions for produce entering the US market. They were able to significantly reduce waste and protect their overall margins. That’s what is so important about all of our products: they can help protect business in good times and more difficult periods.
What benefits does SmartFresh offer?
DM: We’re the original innovators. Unlike some choices, the SmartFresh Quality System is a complete system of proven solutions, customised usage recommendations, versatile application formats, high-touch service, and application verification. It offers both storage room and “on the move” solutions that can help virtually any post-harvest freshness requirement. We simply offer the most confident, flexible and diverse solutions in the industry.
The full interview appears in the February issue of Eurofruit Magazine.
