We recently hosted a discussion with Clarifruit CEO Elad Mardix and Provision Analytics CEO Eric Westblom to talk about the digitization and modernization of the fresh produce supply chain. The session was facilitated by Todd Fabec of Clarifruit and Kevin Davies of Provision Analytics, with appearances by two customers of both companies to discuss the business impact they have seen.
It was a far-ranging conversation that touched on the strengths of each platform, as well as the transformative benefits of combining them in one business’ operations.
Elad began the discussion by describing Clarifruit as a comprehensive quality control platform operating on three levels:
- The digitization of quality standards, allowing users to define and manage their unique quality parameters.
- The use of computer vision by inspectors, enabling real-time data collection and image analysis in the field.
- Data analysis and reporting, offering valuable insights into quality trends and issues, optimizing decision-making processes for fresh produce businesses.
It’s at this third level that Clarifruit interacts with Provision Analytics, providing reliable data in real time for decision makers.
Provision Analytics: Optimizing Digital Food Safety
Provision Analytics helps streamline compliance with various regulatory standards, such as FSMA, BRC, and Global Gap, by providing customizable templates for quality documentation. The platform’s analytics capabilities allow users to gain valuable insights from the collected data, aiding in trend analysis and decision-making.
Overall, Provision Analytics is designed to enhance efficiency, reduce errors, and improve quality control in the fresh produce industry by transitioning from manual, paper-based processes to a digital, data-driven approach.
Quality and Compliance, Hand in Hand: the Synergy Between Clarifruit and Provision Analytics
“While Clarifruit digitizes quality data, Provision Analytics digitizes the contextual data. So Clarifruit will tell how good the end product is and Provision Analytics will tell you all of the practices that led up to that”. That’s how Kevin described the way that these two platforms work together in the fresh produce supply chain.
Elad envisions this relationship in a series of steps:
Step 1: Identify issues in quality by using Clarifruit’s computer vision platform
Step 2: Investigate to find out the cause of issues, using Provision Analytics’ capabilities to perform a root cause analysis.
Step 3: Implement an action plan to mitigate risks like this further down the road, relying on Provision Analytics.
Step 4: Use Clarifruit to track and monitor to ensure standards are adhered to, and prioritize vendors based on actual performance data.
The Clarifruit-Provision Analytics Flywheel: Continual Optimization Over Time
Eric elaborated on the role of these corrective measures. Provision Analytics serves as a vital “contextual wrapper” allowing users to efficiently organize, search, sort, and summarize information, whether it’s related to recent activities or historical data spanning days or even years. This includes details such as the use of cleaning products on equipment, maintenance, and inspections, as well as records like Harvest, packing, and storage records.
With this rich contextual information, organizations can implement corrective actions and preventative measures seamlessly within their workflows. This ensures that relevant data is readily available to all personnel, from supervisors to frontline workers.
Building on Elad’s steps, we can envision the following real-world scenario:
- Clarifruit instantly detects that the fruit is too small for the intended quality grade.
- Users then access Provision Analytics to summarize all standards of that specific grower, examining factors that may have influenced the fruit size.
- Provision Analytics streamlines the process of taking corrective and preventive actions, ensuring that growers and packers can address issues effectively.
- Clarifruit tracks the effectiveness of these actions over time, allowing growers and packers to monitor improvements in fruit size and quality, thereby enhancing their processes.
By leveraging both Provision Analytics and Clarifruit, companies can continually refine their processes over time.
Customer Perspectives: Fresh Direct Produce & Lineage
Two customers of Provision Analytics and Clarifruit joined the conversation to help us understand the business impact of both platforms: cold chain solution provider VersaCold (acquired by Lineage in 2022) and large fresh produce wholesaler Fresh Direct Produce Ltd.
Accessing Advanced Capabilities Through a User-Friendly Interface
In both of their responses, usability featured as a major benefit. For VersaCold, Provision Analytics enabled greater efficiency and data accessibility by eliminating paperwork, and information available to all stakeholders.
With over 100 fresh produce categories and thousands of SKUs, Fresh Direct Produce ranks as a “super user” of Clarifruit.
After a short training period, their employees were able to fully leverage the platform’s capabilities to generate comprehensive reports on their quality assurance activities.
Improved Transparency & Customer Satisfaction
Both companies also emphasized the impact that these platforms had on customer relations. For VersaCold, this meant a reduction in the time and labor required for analyzing claims, leading to lower payouts and insurance premiums. And in Fresh Direct’s case, they saw a drop in customer rejections, because quality expectations were now consistently and accurately aligned.
Both Clarifruit and Provision Analytics represent a class of software that is enabling seamless digital transition across the supply chain for fresh produce, and food more generally. As Elad and Eric agreed, the vision of a digitized, modernized supply chain is now within reach thanks to the integration of AI and Big Data.
You can view the full conversation, here:
