Berlin show virtually upgrades its offer

The Fruit Logistica Virtual Market Place® Internet platform has been relaunched and this year features significantly enhanced search functions.

This industry web portal for the worldwide fresh fruit trade (www.fruitlogistica.com / Virtual Market Place) lists company profiles, products and services for more than 1,500 exhibitors from 64 countries at the leading international fresh produce trade fair.

Trade visitors, exhibitors and others interested in the industry can use the Virtual Market Place year round to find out about the products and services offered by listed companies and arrange direct contact with them.

Fruit Logistica visitors can also access an online appointment calendar to set up meetings with exhibitors and plan their trade fair schedule ahead of time. The international trade fair for fruit and vegetable marketing will take place from February 8 to 10, 2007, at the Berlin Messe Exhibition Centre.

One of the main new Internet platform features is the option to use various filters to narrow down search results and save them online for future use. The new appointment calendar design makes it easier to arrange and manage meetings with exhibitors. Clearly structured print previews with integrated exhibition site maps make it easier to plan trade fair rounds.

Available 24/7, the portal serves as a point of contact and information resource for companies and their customers and attracts more than 120,000 visitors a year.

AN INTRO TO CODING

Digital coding system supplier Markem is running a training course to provide an introduction to the GS1 bar code standards and system.

The session will take place on November 15 at the company’s UK headquarters and is aimed at anyone involved in bar coding and product quality control.

An authorised training centre for GS1, Markem’s courses will demonstrate how to create the ideal bar code and choose the correct code for applications including consumer units, traded units and pallets.

Delegates will learn how to provide extra information about products using EAN-128 barcodes, how to use verification equipment to check printed bar-code quality, and how to avoid common problems when printing barcodes. They will also receive an introduction to GS1 UK standards for electronic business messaging and RFID.

Marketing manager Mike Whiteoak said: “Millions of pounds are lost every year in the UK as a result of poor bar code quality. These courses aim to improve standards by developing a greater understanding of bar coding across the board.

“The training days are designed for anyone who comes into contact with the GS1 system as part of their job. This may include distribution and logistics staff, marketing and product account managers, and basically anyone wanting to refresh their skills.”

GROWERS ON THE BARCODE IN JAPAN

Grower images and other useful information are now available to Japanese shoppers with just a swipe of a barcode.

Technologists have created a customer bar-code system that allows shoppers to drum up not only details of the item, but also a picture of its producer.

Several stores belonging to Japanese chain Aeon group, which has become the latest supermarket member of EurepGAP, have already begun to label packs in this way, the chain’s section director Chiyuki Uehara, revealed at this month’s EurepGAP conference in Prague.

The company, which prides itself on its commitment to the environment, also employs its staff to clear rubbish from the streets around the stores.

While European retailers may not be quite so forward thinking, there are moves to integrate the information available through good agricultural practice further along the distribution chain.

Metro in Dusseldorf, for example, traces pallets through its warehouse with bar codes, carrying each product’s complete history.

SHOPPING ONLINE TO INCREASE IN VALUE

Although the majority have recognised it already, effective and attractive online shopping facilities are now an absolute must for progressive food retailers.

While the facility exists for today’s shopper, research has shown that it will be an even more important part of the purchasing habits of tomorrow’s consumer. Two thirds of British teenagers said they will buy at least some of their groceries over the internet when they are adults, according to grocery industry research group IGD.

The IGD poll of 1,000 people found that only 32 per cent of teenagers aged between 13 and 19 said they would use a supermarket for all their shopping.

The majority opted for a mix of online ordering and supermarket visits. A total of 39 per cent opted for a combination on online shopping mixed with specialist stores and supermarket visits, and 15 per cent said they would shop for food only online.

Joanne Denney-Finch, IGD chief executive, said the research, which was presented to the grocery industry at the IGD annual conference earlier this month, highlighted the need to offer shoppers an online service.

Of the bigger supermarket players in the UK, only Morrisons, Somerfield and Marks & Spencer are yet to offer online food shopping facilities.

Amazingly, Tesco.com takes 66 per cent of all online grocery orders placed in the UK, according to research results published by comScore Networks.

IT AS INVESTMENT AID

In this article, Anglia Business Solutions looks at how IT can be viewed as an investment aid from two perspectives. Firstly from the customers’ viewpoint, this being the most important factor in the health of a business. And secondly from an inward investment aspect, as organisations in the fresh produce industry seek to benefit from the wave of industry consolidation.

Let’s start with the customer experience. In the past, the state of the supplier’s internal systems and processes was seen as their business. As long as the goods were delivered to the required quality and on time, everybody was happy. However, somewhere along the line, the landscape changed. Nowadays, not only have the goods got to arrive on time and to the agreed quality, but a few new conditions have been thrown into the mix.

Apart from the downward squeeze on margins, suppliers now have to cope with being able to trace where products came from and what was used to grow them. Recent events in the US will bring traceability into even sharper focus in future. (This, of course, is where E.coli found in bagged spinach caused two deaths and a nationwide outbreak of food poisoning).

In addition, food companies are in the front line when it comes to advising customers on product contents. Swinging fines are now being applied for mislabelling products on top of the costs of withdrawing the offending goods.

From the customer’s perspective, a supplier repeatedly getting it wrong can be symptomatic of poor internal systems and processes. It highlights the fact that the company may lack the necessary disciplines and agility to continue to service their needs.

As a means of remaining competitive, retailers are constantly seeking ways to reduce their costs. Dealing with fewer suppliers who can take responsibility for outsourcing more of their services is now a widely used business tactic to achieve efficiency improvements. Poor systems and processes hinder this initiative and can result in the loss of a valuable customer as they question whether to continue to invest further resources into the business relationship.

These issues of inadequate IT systems are not lost on those asked to fund investments on acquisitions or major restructuring programmes. Neil Eastwood is a Partner at PriceWaterhouseCoopers who has supported multiple private equity and corporate organisations in acquisitions in multiple industries, including food. As he reports: “The effectiveness of IT systems is generally dictated by their ability to support the business, their cost, and their ability (or agility) in supporting future needs. This holds equally true in the deal environment.”

The purchase premiums being paid in today’s competitive market frequently lead to aggressive margin targets post deal to support debt payments. The ability of IT to support cash generation without large-scale investment or excessive time delays will often define the attractiveness of a target. Potential acquirers or investors will typically seek to understand how well the target organisation uses IT to manage all aspects of the business. A well engineered solution that provides accurate and timely customer and product information is a definite asset throughout the due diligence process.

The IT of a purchased company will often be replaced by the acquirer’s systems post transaction. The ability to isolate and migrate clear and logically organised data from the acquired company will be a major factor in the migration cost to the new parent compay’s systems.

Any cost of systems remediation post transaction will typically be subtracted from the value paid - often with a multiplier applied.

There are no hard and fast rules dictating which systems are most attractive in the deal environment. The ability to maximise cash through tight supply chain and order to cash capability will generally add more to value than a particular package. That said in a tight margin industry such as food, an off-the-shelf package may be viewed more positively by an acquirer than a bespoke or highly customised system.

In summary, the quality of an organisations IT systems is a major factor in the attractiveness to a potential buyer or investor as well as being a significant contributor/ detractor to value - possibly only second to the quality of management.

For further information on any of the above contact sarahn@angliabs.com.

CLEARED FOT ACTION

eFreshportal.com, the internet facility which bought out HairyApe earlier this year, is introducing a new concept in produce trading with the launch of Get Clearing - a clearing house, where buyers can source produce from international suppliers with secure buying and logistics solutions.

Get Clearing will be rolled out to all sections of the website - meat, fish, flowers and plants as well as fruit and vegetables - from November 1.

Since buying HairyApe from Martin Clifford in June, Global E-Trading, the company behind eFreshportal has been consulting with the former owner to develop the site.

Hans Robbens, ceo of Global E-Trading, said: “It has become much more than Hairy Ape, which was a reference site. Now it is a live trading site with references.

“If you want to buy directly from a supplier you need to have secure payments and logistics solutions to be sure that the goods will get there and with this clearing house, buyers will have that.”

Robbens, pictured above, said the portal would provide an ideal method for lesser-known suppliers to gain good publicity.

“Any buyer will have access for free and suppliers will pay a small fee to display their produce. We have suppliers as far as New Zealand and Thailand wanting to use it and buyers are saying ‘I never knew there were so many suppliers out there’,” he told FPJ.

Robbens said the clearing house is the obvious solution in today’s marketing conditions. “These days buyers want to go direct and cut out the middleman. International communication makes it easy to purchase products. The world has become a marketplace where the only thing missing is an information system which tells people who has what available and for what price,” he said.

According to Robbens, the company started just one year ago, focused solely on flowers and plants but the transition to other fresh products followed soon after.

He said: “The portal for flowers was a huge success and then some of the big retailers said it would be great to have the same facility for fruit and veg. Within two months we had introduced fruit, veg, meat and fish and developed the site from there. Our strategy is to buy out other portals and Hairy Ape was one of the ones we chose.”

Clifford said parting with the project was not easy but the opportunity was one he couldn’t afford to miss. He said: “I had stuck with it for nearly six years. The internet is a big step for some in this trade but people were beginning to use the site more and more but it was too good a chance to miss to be part of something bigger.”

Clifford said progress on the fresh produce side of the eFreshportal site has not developed as fast as others but he is hopeful it will catch up before long.

“Fruit and veg doesn’t seem to have been their first priority but they have got more people working on it now. The site wasn’t quite right but it will be altered in the next few weeks and if it all goes to plan I think the trade will find it very useful.

“Each sector is very different and the company has learned that one size definitely doesn’t fit all but when it’s finished it will enable growers to get firm prices for their produce as much as 12 months in advance which will enable them to plan what they need to grow like never before.”