Autumn/Winter ‘18
CONTENTS 01 A WORD FROM OUR CEO
Hello everyone,
02 WFL AWARDED M&S GOLD STATUS
I hope you have all enjoyed the great summer weather.
03 THIS SEASON’S NEWS
I have to start the introduction of this edition of The Core by saying how it was a fabulous achievement for our business to achieve M&S Gold status. We are only the fourth supplier across the entire food supply base to achieve it and are the first produce supplier to be awarded it. We are also the 1st multi-retailer site to achieve it and the feedback from the M&S assessors on the day was hugely positive about ‘Our Purpose, Our Processes and Our People’.
05 SOFT FRUIT SUCCESS 07 MANSFIELDS INVESTS 08 AVOCADOS: A GROWING TREND 09 QUALITY INSPECTION PROCESS OPTIMISATION 10 QTEE PEAR LAUNCHES IN SAINSBURY’S 11 SHIPPING HELL: SCHEDULES OUT OF SYNC 12 UK TOP FRUIT SEASON UPDATE 13 T&G IN ASIA 14 WFL LEADING THE UK SMETA SEDEX WORKING GROUP
I would like to focus on ‘Our People’ for a moment and thank every single person who works within WFL. It was the work of the whole business that enabled us to achieve Gold. M&S were impressed by the skills of ‘Our People’ and the behaviours they demonstrated. We’re presently looking at some ways to celebrate this success and plan to share these with you soon.
16 MEET THE GROWER
Overall our business continues to perform well in a tough, competitive marketplace. We continue to work hard to meet the needs of our customers and this is appreciated by them. We have three months until the end of our financial year so we can’t take our eye off the ball as we strive to achieve our budget.
17 BACK AND FORTH
Let’s keep improving!
15 THE FUTURE OF SUPPLIER APPROVAL
18 RECIPE 19 COMPETITION
The Core Magazine is always looking for fresh ideas and new stories so if you have something to share or want to get in touch, please email gary.harrison@worldwidefruit.co.uk
WFL AWARDED
M&S GOLD STATUS is haw, By Neal Coaltlio irector D s n r e p O W FL
Gold! Yes that’s right, we have been awarded M&S Gold status. What a fantastic result and a significant milestone finally achieved. With it we become the first produce supplier in the UK and the first multi-retailer site, in any sector, to achieve this award. We started our journey in 2013 when the first model line was introduced focussing on punnetless JAZZ™ Apples. Since then we have taken all of the good things about our company and our people and built on that solid foundation. During that time, we have • secured Gold Investors in People • trained over forty people in LEAN • implemented a Zero Harm Safety Strategy • ensured zero waste goes to landfill • increased our OEE by 101% • reduced our rework by 76% • improved production speeds by 45 packs per person per hour • witnessed the site handling 15m extra packs, an increase of 32% • created capacity and introduced new products Since achieving Gold, a number of people have asked me “what next?” and the answer is quite simple: we build on our achievement and make it stick, we make it irreversible!
W
es f fic o L F NEWS 02
THIS SEASON’S
NEWS JAZZ™ STARTS SEASON WITH ‘UK’S TASTIEST APPLE’ TRIUMPH Grower Chris Levett of Baretilt Farm in Kent has helped JAZZ™ Apple get the UK season off to a flying start after his batch of JAZZ™ were voted the ‘UK’s Tastiest Apple’ at the recent National Fruit Show, with JAZZ™ grown by Simon Bray of Monks Farm making it a one-two finish for the variety after scooping second prize. Taking place at the Kent Event Centre on the 25/26th October, the National Fruit Show champions the best of the UK’s commercially-grown top fruit and soft fruit and at the heart of the event is the 60 metres of competition entries. On winning the prestigious title the special variety made it four wins in six years to cement its place as the growing star of the apple world. The award comes on the back of
Jazz ™ at t h e B BC g ood food s h ow
the brand this year pipping Cox to become the UK’s fifth most popular apple. Kantar data also revealed recently that consumer spend on the brand rose to £50.8million in the 52 weeks ending September 18 2018, an increase of 16.5% on the last year and +36.5% since 2016. The fantastic news for JAZZ™ coincides with plans to plant an extra 250,000 extra trees by 2021. Next up for the award-winning apple brand will be the BBC Good Food Show at the NEC, Birmingham, at the end of November where they will be sampling their UK-grown new season JAZZ™ to over 100,000 consumers over four days.
GARY HARRISON OF WFL AND UK COMMERCIAL MANAGER FOR JAZZ™ “We are proud and delighted to have won this award. Hats off to Chris and his team who have put in the hard work all summer to produce some stunning apples. It ’s our fourth win in six years, and comes after we recently hit over £50m in consumer spend over the last year so it ’s the perfect way to start the season. The love for JAZZ™ in the UK just gets stronger and stronger each year, and with consumer sampling events and increased availability in all major supermarkets, the JAZZ™ name is spreading further and further and we are forecasting continued growth for JAZZ™ Apples in the UK in the years ahead.”
03 NEWS
HEAVY METAL BAND IRON MAIDEN TURN TO JAZZ™ WFL gets a wide variety of lorries passing through Apple Way, mostly painted in the livery of the haulier which runs them. Our resident Iron Maiden fanboy Phil Cole was somewhat surprised therefore, on 31st July this year, when IDS Transport arrived on site in this beautifully painted vehicle. Unfortunately, the band weren’t on board to give him a private concert but the 15 bins of JAZZ™ Apples were very much in keeping with the musical theme. Phil has been a Maiden fan since 1986, travelling around the world to see the band, including in 2008 being flown by singer Bruce Dickinson to the concert in Poland and attending Bruce’s 50th birthday party that night. So after a brief flirtation with JAZZ™, it’s back to heavy metal for the band. And for Phil, back to his beloved spreadsheets!
BACK-TO-BACK TROPHIES FOR BELL The WFL Golf Day returned on Sunday 2nd September and it was young hotshot Simon Bell who was celebrating again after making it back-to-back wins at Spalding Golf Club, despite having had his handicap cut by six shots since the last competition. The twice-yearly contest turned out to be a triple celebration for the Bell family with dad Richard claiming second place and Simon also picking up the ‘Nearest to the Pin’ trophy. Coming in third place was Andy Scutham, while Martyn Clare and Tim Ward won the mystery pairs. The much sought-after ‘Longest Drive’ trophy went to guest player Chris Leavers. It was the perfect weather and conditions at the Lincolnshire course and after the day’s golf the players were treated to a terrific meal before the trophy ceremony. If you’re interested in having a swing in the next competition then get in touch with Richard Bell.
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ed
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wit h W FL s taf f priz es t he r a f fle
WFL TAKE PART IN WORLD’S BIGGEST COFFEE MORNING A huge round of applause to WFL’s Whitstable and Spalding staff who took part in the world’s biggest coffee morning organised by Macmillan on Friday 28th September. Staff were asked to bake cakes and treats and support the cause through a raffle which raised a fantastic figure of £1630,72 for Macmillan Cancer Support. Not only did the great event raise money for a cause which touches everyone but also allowed the team a Friday treat of lots of yummy cakes. Another special mention goes to the below companies who also contributed to the final amount raised. Thank you!
s ec on d ric plac ha rd e d
l, Sau it e i O ll o p f r u T M&S uy er B
Core Fruit, Davies International, Dennegeur, Fruit Masters Freshlinc, Fowler Welch, Glass Associates, Green Marketing, Henderson Brown, IPP Logipal, Ifco, JAZZ™ Apples, Jungheinrich, Naylors Flowers, More People, Tailor Made Resources, VOG, Vogelaar, US2U, WFL.
NEWS 04
SOFT FRUIT
SUCCESS After WFL’s first foray into soft fruit (see the summer issue of The Core for the full details), the company has now agreed a twelve-month programme to provide Euroberry blueberries into M&S. The win follows a trial earlier this year of some of Euroberry’s exclusive varieties such as the Rocio and Corona blueberries, whose growers are based in Spain, Morocco, Chile and Peru. WFL have now secured the deal to supply the blueberries from October to June with a break being taken when the UK fruit is prominent in the market.
STRAWBERRIES In addition to these exciting developments, WFL has also taken on the management of a strawberry programme into M&S. The majority of the strawberries will be UK-grown by S&A Produce, who have production in Kent and Herefordshire where the company HQ is based. Like Euroberry, S&A Produce invest heavily in varietal development with the largest private breeding programme in Europe for strawberries.
The project and its success highlights both WFL’s ambition and aptness to develop and grow its soft fruit business. Euroberry have also been working on some exciting new blackberry and raspberry varieties which WFL will launch into M&S later this year.
05 SPECIAL FEATURE
ancis danny f r
DANNY FRANCIS, WFL’S BUSINESS UNIT DIRECTOR “The soft fruit market is hugely exciting with some amazing innovation, varieties and growers. The initial M&S trial was a great success so we’re looking forward to rolling out the twelve-month programme. The trial in M&S has enabled us to assess our capabilities, refine our processes and perfect our systems so we believe we’re perfectly placed to be a key player in the UK soft fruit category moving forward.”
WFL 5 YEAR DATA In the past five years berries have grown well ahead of top fruit to become the largest of the three sectors in value terms. Comparatively, stone fruit has struggled to match these growth figures and overall spend has remained relatively flat.
+8.3% +1.3%
-1.5%
+16.8%
+5.8%
+7.9%
+4.4%
+12.6%
1,000,000
Key: +1.3%
+0.5%
+6.5%
Total top fruit
-2.4%
Total berries Total stone fruit
0 52 w/e 20th July 2014
52 w/e 19th July 2015
52 w/e 17th July 2016
SO WHY SOFT FRUIT? While the move into soft fruit is crucial to WFL’s LEAN agenda, which aims to maximise efficiency and generate product stretch, the soft fruit category also presents much-wider opportunities for growth, not just in the UK but around the world. In the UK, the soft fruit category is now the leading fruit category. Currently worth £1.3bn in value, it is up from £850m in 2014. To put things in to context, top fruit is £1.2bn and stone fruit is £400m. WFL’s parent company, T&G, are currently undertaking a review to evaluate the berry category globally. There is no target for the UK as yet but there is no doubt it is a fastgrowing and hugely exciting category and one with large scope for further growth in underdeveloped markets.
52 w/e 16th July 2017
52 w/e 15th July 2018
T&G’S BERRY JOURNEY SO FAR • In Australia, they have invested in having exclusivity of Fall Creek Nurseries and driving growth and brand value via Orchard Road (T&G’s own brand). • In NZ, they are growing and marketing their own fruit with additional volume coming from third party growers. • In the UK, the key has been to form strategic supply chain partnerships with soft fruit specialists. • In the US, they have formed a marketing agreement with a large producer called Golden Eagle (aka Aquilini). • In Chile, they are marketing and selling fruit from other third party growers.
SPECIAL FEATURE 06
MANSFIELDS
INVESTS Mansfields has an exciting schedule of projects across its fruit business on the horizon as the company announced over £10 million of inward investment of which £4m is specifically towards top fruit. The investment began in June and is expected to be completed by August 2019. It will include the following: • The planting of 50,000 new trees using the post and wire method, which will ensure higher yields, lessen the pressure on staff and also future proof the ability to forecast and harvest with advances in robotics. • The addition of a further Flow Wrap Machine (taking the total up to 5) and a further two new speed baggers which include water in-feeds for gentler presentation of fruit to the line. • The installation of the UK’s first New Burg Cell Packer for loose packing lines (also water-fed). • A new Combisort Greefa Apple and Pear Grader to move grading to a fully water-fed system. • Further consolidation of cold storage with new DCA (Dynamic Controlled Atmosphere) stores complete for the 2019 harvest.
n ew
07 BEHIND THE SCENES
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LEARNING CENTRE SUCCESS Mansfields’ Learning Centre, which was a project set up at the beginning of last year, has also reported some incredibly positive results. Started in January 2017, following a difficult Christmas 2016 due to staffing challenges, the Learning Centre provides new starters with a host of information on arrival, such as health & safety, company procedures, personal protective equipment, customers, pack types, packaging and fruit defects. The idea is to train, help and support new workers when they arrive into the business so that they can get settled quicker, be more productive, happy and most importantly, retained in order to stop the labour churn. The Learning Centre houses fully operational packing lines which allow new staff the chance to pack on a line before doing so in the main pack-houses. Since the introduction of the dedicated Learning Centre, efficiency has jumped with the cost of re-work (re-working of fruit) being reduced by circa 90%. In addition, in the last 18 months 90% of the employees who have taken part in the learning centre inductions have stayed on, as opposed to previously when this retention figure of new starters was closer to 40%.
PHILIP HERMON, CEO AT MANSFIELDS: “We’re proud to be leaders within the fresh produce industry and are delighted to announce more forward investment in top fruit business. The new trees, machinery and storage will be key for future growth and will lessen the pressures and stress on our staff.”
AVOCADOS:
A GROWING
TREND
t t, By Mark eveesrseunit director W F L busindos for avoca
According to Kantar Worldpanel in August 2018 Avocados had a growth in spend of +5.5% YOY to £180.5m in the UK, with volume up +5%. This is obviously fantastic news for WFL but how is the supply chain reacting in order to meeting the growing demand? Propagating and then planting more avocado trees is key.
HOW DO YOU PLANT AND GROW AVOCADO TREES?
HOW ARE AVOCADO TREES PRODUCED? In order to obtain more trees, growers either purchase trees from dedicated nurseries or produce trees on their own farms. There are two main ways to produce an avocado tree and it all starts from growing an avocado seed. Growing an avocado stone produces a seedling. The cheapest way to produce a known cultivar ‘variety’ is to graft the cultivar onto the seedling rootstock. Producing trees with clonal rootstocks is more expensive but allows rootstocks with known benefits to be used.
eed do s s a c Avo plan t
It takes approximately 18 months from start to finish to produce a tree ready for planting on the farm. On modern farms in Peru, the trees are typically planted three metres apart from each other. Known as high density plantings they typically have 1000 trees per hectare. Young avocado trees grown in Peru’s Atacama desert, officially the driest place on earth, are protected from the wind with netting. If left to grow avocado trees can grow to a huge size but on modern farms tree size is normally controlled through regular pruning. Avocado trees are subtropical, evergreen and like well-drained soil in areas that are frost free. They are believed to originate from South Central Mexico and because they come from the rainforest require good volumes of water. In the desert where they are grown in Peru, irrigation systems deliver a regulated amount of water to each tree and beehives are often placed on the farm to help with pollination. From 10,000 flowers only one flower typically develops into a fruit. A well-managed modern farm in Peru should produce approximately 20 tonnes of avocados per hectare.
ling m ar k ev t r e e s e r e t t Pl an in t h t ing des er e At acama t in P e ru BEHIND THE SCENES 08
QUALITY INSPECTION PROCESS OPTIMISATION r, By jason wicinatlemanag er w fl t echn
As a part of the ongoing continuous improvement of our quality management system we have been working on several improvements over the last six of months in order to deliver fruit within both lower and upper customer spec limits to the Apple Way production lines. We identified three key elements we needed to improve in order to achieve this. Firstly, we set about reviewing our raw material specs. It was recognised that in order to maintain our quality standards whilst implementing our new inspection procedures, we needed to firstly deliver full specification alignment and engage our supply base on the revised defect tolerances. This would ensure we could deliver an improved product flow through the system, whilst also maintaining the correct quality level. We have issued the new defect tolerances to our Northern Hemisphere suppliers and as the switch is made into the season we should start to see fruit being assessed against these new tolerances. Our product management team will be working closely with both suppliers and the site operations team to ensure our objectives are met. Secondly, in order to further drive correct first-time quality at source, we recognised that there would be benefits associated to our key suppliers adopting and aligning with our own assessment procedure and using the Muddy Boots greenlight quality control software.
This will enable suppliers to act on poor quality before the fruit leaves where possible or give us the opportunity to better focus quality resources on arrival where not possible. The “supplier despatch� check as we have called it, reflects our intake check in order to give a single reporting format from end to end. These checks all feed into the Muddy Boots platform and allow us to generate several reports that can be used by our product management team to both manage stock internally and feed back to our supply base. Finally, we considered how we assess the fruit once it arrives in the UK. There were two elements we decided we needed to address. Firstly, there was a need to standardise our intake process across all sites. This is important on two levels as we are accepting a consistent level of product into the business and also ensuring we are feeding the right information back to our supply base on quality. We have therefore adopted a system on apples and pears where we carry out assessments based on the variables within the load. This will allow us to better identify risk within the load and to pinpoint low risk arrivals which we can more efficiently manage through the business. A new operating procedure was written to cover these changes and this was trained and rolled out in both the Spalding and Kent offices in August 2018. This CI will help to ensure fruit quality at receipt is more consistent and the quality of reporting meets both UK packhouse and supplier needs.
Giving our business full visibility of the quality attributes at point of packing prior to shipping, we are piloting with one of our key South African suppliers and initial feedback has been positive with them being especially impressed with how user friendly the software is. At the end of the season we will review the system benefits for the supply chain as a whole to determine whether we should roll out to all key suppliers globally in 2019.
f ruit as s es s ed at apple w ay 09  BEHIND THE SCENES
SAINSBURY’S
QTEE LAUNCHED re , by k at rinaicmaolomanag er w fl t echn
The Qtee pear we see today was created by Stein Harald in Norway in 1987 and is a result of cross breeding a Williams pear and a Broket pear. The variety was named Celina and the brand was given the name Qtee. A large proportion of the Qtee is grown in Belgium where it has found a happy home of flat ground, damp climate and sunny days. Qtee trees have been planted in Belgium by Achiel and Tania (owners of Fresh Fruit Services), and for Sainsbury’s cover 20.9 hectares.
INTERESTING FACT: SOME EVIDENCE SHOWS THAT PEARS HAVE BEEN EATEN SINCE PREHISTORIC TIMES, ESPECIALLY IN CHINA WHERE THEY’VE BEEN CULTIVATED FOR 3,000 YEARS.
Qtee is a sweet crunchy pear which increases in sweetness and juiciness when ripened. This year we have launched the ripe sweet juicy Qtee with Sainsbury’s in the Ripe and Ready Blush line. The lovely blush pear has a green background and a bright block red colour. It is known for its melt in the mouth eating quality when ripened, the colourful skin, pale juicy flesh, sweet aromatic taste and soft juicy texture. It is one of the best blush pears on the market for ripening that we have benchmarked so far! The Qtee pear supplier Fresh Fruit Services was the first supplier I visited when I started with WFL in 2017 and a lot of work has been done with Sainsbury’s in the last 12 months to bring it to launch. The launch has been very successful with popularity of the Qtee increasing and has seen the variety flying off the shelves! It is being trialled for 12 weeks from September to December with hopes to increase the blush line in the future to go into January or even February. In addition to a fantastic flavour, the Qtee pear also has many incredible health benefits. Pears are rich in important antioxidants, flavonoids, and dietary fibre and pack all of these nutrients in a fat-free, cholesterol-free, 100-calorie package. One of your speed foods for all those Slimming World followers!
k at
rina ton moore y br ow n a n d
BEHIND THE SCENES 10
SHIPPING HELL:
SCHEDULES
OUT OF SYNC ellow, er By Pe t erpL an a g w fl s hip ing m
This season has seen the reliability of shipping schedules fall to record lows, with consequences to our product supply chains and unwelcome additional workloads for everyone continually re-arranging deliveries and having to make additional Defra applications. The starting point was late February with the infamous ‘Beast from the East’ closing ports around Europe because of the high winds and freezing conditions. It took several months for shipping lines to recover their schedules. A period of strong winds also affected vessels loading in Cape Town in early spring. In June, the owners of the Port of Felixstowe rolled out their new IT operating system. Although it had worked well in their other terminals around the world, at Felixstowe it completely crashed their systems. For the first few days the port almost ground to a halt – ships sat idle, trucks took all day to be loaded and trains could not be handled. Things improved slowly as the weeks went by but the productivity of loading/discharging vessels was an issue and even now
11 BEHIND THE SCENES
has not recovered fully. Although in the main it’s a large chunk of our NZ shipments that come through the port, the issues had knock-on effects elsewhere which then affected other trade lanes that we use. Shipping lines diverted some services away from Felixstowe to either Southampton or London Gateway. Those ports initially welcomed the extra business but did not seem to worry too much about how the extra vessel calls would impact on their existing customers. Berthing slots for existing Gateway services went haywire and have continued to suffer all season. When vessels then have to wait too long for a berth, they generally end up omitting the UK, dropping cargo in Rotterdam or Antwerp and transshipping it back at a later date on a different vessel. In a case of deja vu, Southampton’s policy of taking some of the Felixstowe volumes is backfiring on them in the busy run-up to the Christmas peak import season as they are rapidly running out of container storage space and vessels are now omitting the port as a result.
UK TOP FRUIT SEASON UPDATE
Harve
s t t im at Gre e JAZZ ™ at Pe t t
Simmon s ,t manag er By Mart in em e n w fl uk procur
It’s been an unprecedented year when it comes to weather with a Baltic start to 2018 followed by a record-breaking summer heatwave but even in the face of these challenges, I believe the UK top fruit category is in top form. The year began with a prolonged winter so fears of frost damage were the early worry. Ironically, as we started to see that the crop had been fairly resistant to the cold temperatures and was in good shape, we then went headlong into one of the hottest and driest spring and summers on record. Due to hot weeks it was incredibly hard to assess just how the crop would be affected as the weather was a first to most of the WFL team and growers. While hotter temperatures generally ensure a sweeter crop, the main worry was fruit size or lack of it.
A WORD FROM THE ORCHARD
lin s ell , ds By j eremryt h O rc h ar Br ais wo
The autumn has been incredibly kind to us in some ways with some fantastic weather for harvest, meaning our pickers have been working in short sleeves into October. That said, it’s been a bit too kind in places with the drought continuing, which has meant the unusual position of irrigating whilst harvesting. With the JAZZ™ Apple harvest just under way, it’s when we really see the outcome of our season’s work but I always think an orchard’s potential is decided at least two years before it’s planted. The variety, the planting system, the site, tree density, support structure, pollination and other factors will dictate an orchard’s eventual potential. JAZZ™ seem to have thrived in the hot summer and fruit size is good, sugars look exceptional and some cooler autumn evenings have triggered some great colouring.
Thankfully, we got hit with a rainy spell in July which helped the fruit to grow in size just as the harvest was kicking off. While they are not the biggest apples we have seen, the general opinion from our growers is that this season’s overall quality is excellent. WFL has again led the way when it comes to innovation this season. The Smitten and Sunburst apple varieties have all been well received and Celina, Piqa Reo and Piqa Boo pear varieties have once again added a big injection of excitement into the pear category. There is still quite a lot of hard work to be done but I think we can certainly be proud of the fantastic tasting apples and pears we have seen so far.
e ll s n d i y l w ar m a e r J e h h is t wi Our season got off to a good start with an early apple we grow exclusively for Waitrose called Suffolk Pink. Attention to detail delivered us an exceptional crop and some new approaches to post harvest management with Smartfresh meant we’ve been able to maintain fruit quality throughout the season. The Waitrose team also did a brilliant job of getting the fruit to the consumer in good time, which meant the fruit flew off the shelves and the variety received some fantastic consumer reviews on social media. It’s great when people appreciate your work and even better when they go to the trouble of saying so on social media. I was also incredibly honoured to generate some endorsement from Waitrose itself after I won the award for the ‘Inspiration and Leadership’ award at the recent Waitrose Farming Conference. I’m really over the moon to receive this recognition and am convinced it’s down to the amazing team I’m lucky enough to work with.
BEHIND THE SCENES 12
T&G IN ASIA y, By mik e sotulmsabnag er w fl e xpor
WFL is of course half-owned by T&G, a renowned New Zealand produce company whose history goes back more than 120 years. But sending the best NZ apples to WFL in UK is just one of T&G’s many trading lines. Over recent years, the company has built up a particularly strong presence in Asia where it sends fruit year-round, not just from NZ, but also from Australia, North America, South America and Europe. Placing people on the ground in recent years has been key to better understanding and growing these developing markets and the company now has a network of its own staff located in the region. T&G’s office in China is based in Shanghai and acts both as an importer as well as offering market and QC support to partner importers. Thailand is a key market for JAZZ™ and so a local office was set up in Bangkok a couple of years ago to help with the marketing of the variety, as well as with sales of other fruits such as kiwi. Japan is another particularly important market for T&G for lines such as asparagus, citrus and increasingly for JAZZ™, and is supported by two Japanese employees based in Tokyo. One of the best global markets for Envy™ is Vietnam where a local Vietnamese staff member is on the ground to check arrivals, with a similar person based in Singapore who also covers Malaysia.
Creat ive ja zz ™ Apple Dis pl ay
Each market in Asia is unique, with different interpretations of fruit quality, different growth trends, and different protocols in terms of what’s allowed in and what isn’t. Therefore, building a diverse Asian network has been key to T&G growing its business in this exciting part of the world and long may it continue.
ng helpi s m a e e pan t z z ™ A p p l a j ja t &G mot e o r p to
13 BEHIND THE SCENES
WFL LEADING THE
UK SMETA SEDEX WORKING GROUP lif f, By s amuelac nag er w fl e t hic l ma
With a constant focus on continuous improvement, WFL is leading three Sedex working groups in an effort to improve ethical auditing in the UK. Sedex is a global membership organisation that aims to make it simpler to do business and that’s good for everyone. Home to one of the world’s largest collaborative platforms for sharing responsible sourcing data on supply chains, Sedex has more than 50,000 members in over 150 countries. Sedex Members Ethical Trade Audit (SMETA) is one of the most widely used ethical audit formats in the world. An estimated 280,000 SMETAs have been conducted to date. Tens of thousands of companies use Sedex to manage their performance around labour rights, health & safety, the environment and business ethics.
SAMUEL CLIFF COMMENTED: “As a member of Sedex, it ’s great to have a key role in leading these groups and as a company play our part in helping the collaboration movement with other companies keen to make a difference to workers’ lives. The output of these working groups will help in shaping best practice and tackle ethical hot potatoes such as pay and worker rights. As we look to continuously improve the way in which the SMETA auditing format is used, it ’s crucial that auditors using the SMETA format adopt the best possible guidance available to improve consistency in audit findings, which is why we’ve joined these three working groups.“
Their services enable members to bring together many kinds of different data, standards and certifications, to make informed business decisions, and to drive continuous improvement across their value chains. This can help save time and money. The groups are aiming to improve the SMETA auditing guidance around the current hot topics – Consolidated Pay, Zero Hours Contracts and Swedish Derogation.
S am u e l
Clif f
BEHIND THE SCENES 14
THE FUTURE OF
SUPPLIER
APPROVAL
t he S t r at
egy m eet
ing
s, By t hade haalrm ading w fl e t hic atotrr adminis t r
wit h M u dd y an d c ollea Boot s , W F L g ues D f r om u n c a n t e am , En z a & An n T&G N a ew Z e al an d
Let’s imagine there is a shortage of fruit on a variety that a customer urgently requires. Time is of the essence but, luckily, fruit is available from a supplier that we’ve worked with before. We know them well but it has been a couple of years since the last order. What needs to be done is to quickly get the supplier through the due-diligence and approval process so we can get fruit to the customer as fast as possible.
In the future, we will use the cloud-based MuddyBoots Greenlight platform for all our approval needs. That means, unifying capabilities of platforms in only one. MuddyBoots will also integrate support for a number of outside databases: instead of having to manually check certificates one by one, it will be possible to see the certification status of all 3000+ sites automatically and right away.
THE OLD SYSTEM People were often left waiting for a decision. However, the current approval system is slow and complex. The Technical & Ethical Teams together, are almost always able to get suppliers approved in good time (even in rare emergency cases like above) but it is always a time-consuming process – and sometimes issues do fall through the cracks. This is because the teams have to gather information from three platforms, cross-reference data from several sources, and email back and forth with the supplier numerous times. There certainly is room for improvement in the process, or as we’d put it in Germany: “Zis is not efficient enough!” And so Beth Ireland, Simon Bell, and I set out to make the system better – and we can now see the first results on the horizon.
THE NEW SYSTEM A new Supplier Approval System would need to be straightforward, centralised, and robust. Ideally, it should also help us to collect better and more accurate information about the supply chain with less effort. And indeed, we seem to have found a solution that will tick those boxes. The best-case scenario looks like this:
15 BEHIND THE SCENES
In addition, linking suppliers to their respective packers and growers will happen in an automated fashion, which helps us to better track the journey of the fruit from the tree to the shelf. This ties in with newly added risk assessment capabilities that allow us to better recognise issues and hot-spots in our supply chain.
HOW WE GOT THERE The three of us would not have been able to achieve this without teamwork. During our process of planning, doing, checking, and acting we gathered and discussed different ideas and options. Feedback and ‘wish lists’ were collected from those people who would be affected by the change. Beth, being the team lead, liaised with MuddyBoots who helped tremendously by working with us to implement most requests into their platform.
THE FUTURE IMPACT Now, how does all of this help the business and our customers? With the new system, many tasks will be automated while important information is available at the click of a button. The approval process will be quick, simpler and more robust. With the integration of riskassessment tools and other features, we are also prepared and ready to meet the challenging and stringent customer requirements of the future.
MEET THE
GROWER a y fr n n da
ncis
dan i
el
m ar t in
Daniel Martin is Commercial Director of S&A Produce, a leading UK-based soft fruit grower, who have recently joined forces with WFL in a new project to supply strawberries into M&S (see page 5-6). Daniel joined S&A Produce in 1998 and became Commercial Director soon after. In addition to being part of such an exciting business as S&A, which grows in excess of 11,000 tonnes across 3 continents, he is happily married to Julia and has three children, Jessica, Daisy and Thomas. Outside of berries, Daniel is an avid Manchester United fan and even after the club’s worst start ever, he firmly believes that it will not be long before the city is painted red once more as power is regained from their blue noisy neighbours.
s t ra w t he s berries o n h e lf in M &S
PEOPLE 16
BACK& FORTH Katy Irwin and Judy Greetham first met in August 2007 when Katy joined WFL and started working with Judy in the Procurement team. Throughout the years, both of their roles have progressed and they are both now account managers, Judy for M&S Fruit Baskets and Katy for JS Service Provision. FAVOURITE HOBBIES? JUDY “I enjoy watching my son Kieran play football, days out with my family and going to watch the darts. Katy and I have gone together to Sheffield to watch the Premier League darts for the last three years and my family and I went to Blackpool Winter Gardens for the first time this year.” KATY “I am very much a home girl and I love being at home with my three dogs. I also enjoy watching TV series, especially Grey’s Anatomy and The Black List. I love the Grand Prix and am a huge Lewis Hamilton fan. And as boring as it sounds, I really enjoy jigsaw puzzles!”
J U DY
& KA TY
ACTOR/ACTRESS WHO WOULD PLAY YOU IN A FILM? JUDY “I would choose Suranne Jones as I love any drama she appears in, particularly Doctor Foster and Scott & Bailey.” KATY “What an awful question but if I had to say anyone it would be Katherine Heigl. She was one of my favourites from Grey’s Anatomy and is a big dog lover like myself.” SOMETHING PEOPLE MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT YOU? JUDY “Some people think I come across as quite a hard person with a hard exterior but really I wear my heart on my sleeve and can be quite sensitive.” KATY “I am extremely scared of flying but I would absolutely love to do a sky dive. My sister did it last year and it has inspired me to do it, which I am planning to do with Adam Garfoot before my 40th birthday.”
BEST HOLIDAY?
THE OTHER PERSON’S BEST TRAIT AND WORST HABIT?
JUDY “My favourite holiday has to be when my husband and I went to Los Angeles, Las Vegas and San Francisco.”
JUDY “I would have to say (as would others) that’s Katy’s worse habit is her hair twiddling. She is always doing it, even when driving! Her best trait is that I can always rely on her and she is always there for me.”
KATY “Mine was when I went to Portugal. I love the sunshine and in August it was so hot so it was perfect for me.” FAVOURITE FILM? JUDY “I enjoy films but only like to watch them once. I really like Erin Brockovich, Pretty Woman and the Die Hard films. The Die Hard films I can watch more than once.” KATY “I don’t think I could pick just one. I love Titanic and The Shawshank Redemption but am also a big Tom Hanks fan so would have to throw Castaway, Apollo 13 and Forrest Gump in the mix too.”
17 PEOPLE
KATY “Judy’s worse habit has to be when she makes tea and has to use a brand new spoon for each and every cup. Who needs to use 4 spoons for 4 cups of hot drinks? Her best trait would be very similar to her answer for me. Judy is always there for me and has helped me through some difficult times no matter what she had going on herself.” FAVOURITE FRUIT? JUDY “A nice sweet strawberry for me.” KATY “It would have to be a pomelo. My family have been in the fruit industry for many years and my father introduced these to me about 25 years ago and I still love them.”
S
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Blueberry & Hazelnut Oat Cookies
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INSTRUCTIONS Start by preheating the oven at 180º Celsius. In a small bowl mix together the flaxseeds with the water and leave to sit for 5–10 minutes until it becomes gloopy.
INGREDIENTS 1 banana ½ cup of fresh blueberries + extra for decorating the cookies (optional) 2 tbsp of milled flaxseeds + 4 tbsp of water ½ cup of almond butter (peanut butter will work as well) 1 ½ cups of jumbo oats ½ cup of ground almonds 3 tbsp of roughly chopped hazelnuts 3 tbsp of melted coconut oil 3 tbsp of maple syrup or date nectar A dash of vanilla extract 1 tsp of baking powder 3 tbsp of almond milk A pinch of sea salt
Recipe created and photographed by Elisa Rossi at www.happyskinkitchen.com
In a large mixing bowl, mash up the banana with a fork. Add in the melted coconut oil, almond butter, maple syrup, vanilla extract, almond milk and the flax mixture and give it a good mix. Add in the oats, ground almond, chopped hazelnuts and baking powder and mix everything together. Finally gently fold in the blueberries. Lay a baking try with some parchment paper. Scoop out about 1 tablespoon of the mixture for each cookie and with your fingers press it down into a round shape. The mixture is quite sticky so things can get messy! Bake the cookies in the oven for 18–20 minutes until they start to turn golden brown around the edges. Let them cool in the tray for 10 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack for another 10 minutes. Enjoy!
RECIPE 18
COMPETITION Answer the question below correctly and you could win a £50 supermarket voucher. Email your answers to comp@worldwidefruit.co.uk by 31st December 2018 and one lucky winner will be picked in early January.
In what supermarket chain did the Qtee pear launch this year? A) Sainsbury’s B) Topshop C) Argos O W ER T .CO .UK S N A YOUR R UI T E M AI L O R LD W I D E F W COMP@
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£5 0 en ter to win A er shopping vouch Previou s winn e r: K at rina Moore
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Solve the puzzle by logic and reasoning alone, there is no maths involved. Complete the grid so that every row, column and every 3 x 3 box contains the digits 1 to 9.
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Worldwide Fruit Kent Acorn House, Unit 68-69,John Wilson Business Park, Harvey Drive, Chestfield, Whitstable, Kent CT5 3QT
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