Ensuring consistent quality of fresh produce on arrival at export market retail stores is important to all export supply chains. Scott Ledger, Export and Quality Manager with Manbulloo said that, ‘The use of temperature monitoring is an important tool to ensure consistent fruit quality’. Scott and Noel Ainsworth (Department of Agriculture and Fisheries Queensland; DAF) recently produced two short five minute videos.
While the two videos have a focus on mango exports from Australia, the content is relevant to anyone who ships and receives fresh produce.
Another video showcases the benefits that Greg Parr, Managing Director at Glengrove Orchard Pty Ltd has identified as a result of using temperature monitoring in lemon export consignments.
Temperature monitoring is important in identifying where improvements in the cold chain are required to ensure temperatures remain within the preferred range. This is critical to ensure the required fruit quality on arrival at the importer, every time.
While the logger platform provides reports and data on the recorded temperatures, we have often found that these reports do not meet all the requirements of the end-user, and re-graphing the data may be required. In response, the DAF Supply Chain Innovation team developed a video to outline the benefits of re-graphing the temperature data. The video can be viewed here. The team also produced a factsheet and Excel template to assist exporters with the process of re-graphing data. While the factsheet is on the DAF Supply Chain Innovation team website, the Excel template is available upon request to make that process quicker and more reliable.
The Serviced Supply Chains project is funded by the Hort Frontiers Asian Markets Fund (project AM15002), part of the Hort Frontiers strategic partnership initiative developed by Hort Innovation, with co-investment from the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Queensland (DAF), Department of Jobs, Precincts & Regions (Victoria), Manbulloo (mangoes), Montague Fresh (summerfruit), Glengrove (citrus), the Australian Government plus in-kind support from the University of Queensland and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
For more information:
Noel Ainsworth
Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Australia
Email: noel.ainsworth@daf.qld.gov.au
Scott Ledger featured in videos discussing temperature management.