South Africa’s Fruitways recognises the value of colour and texture in pome fruit through partnership with AgroFresh

AgroFresh Solutions, Inc., a global leader in post-harvest fresh produce solutions, has been working with Fruitways, a leader in the South African apple industry, for more than 20 years.

By integrating the AgroFresh SmartFresh™ quality system into its operations over many years, Fruitways has been able to revolutionize its business by allowing longer storage of fruit and the export of high quality fruit over a much longer season.

In addition, markets have been opened up that were previously unavailable due to quality constraints. With the introduction of Harvista™ 1.3 SC as a near-harvest product, Fruitways now has another valuable tool for controlling product quality before and during harvest.

“AgroFresh is an important supplier for us,” said Jaco Moelich, General Manager – Technical Services at Fruitways. “Both Harvista and SmartFresh provide us with valuable tools to determine when we want to harvest and pack the fruit for our customers. SmartFresh has changed the way we think about our post-harvest process and our decision-making regarding storage and marketing of our fruit.”

The SmartFresh™ quality system and Harvista™ 1.3 SC technology have transformed Fruitways’ presence in the pome fruit industry.

“The climate is not always ideal for good color development, so sometimes the tree has to be left a little longer to allow the cold fronts to come in the fall. With Harvista, we can delay our harvest. The fruit gets a little bigger, but also develops very good color if we can delay the harvest a little,” Moelich added. “After harvest, texture is the most important thing and SmartFresh plays a very big role in maintaining a crisp texture for the consumer during storage, long after the apple harvest.”

“It gives us pride and satisfaction to know that Fruitways and the pome fruit industry benefit from the research and investment that AgroFresh has made and continues to make in the area of ​​quality management,” said Peter Wood, Country Manager South Africa for AgroFresh. “Collaborations such as the one with Fruitways are the cornerstone of the success that AgroFresh has had in the industry for decades. We answer real quality and freshness issues that our customers face throughout the fresh produce supply chain.”

AgroFresh launched the SmartFresh™ Quality System products based on 1-MCP for apples starting in 2003. Over the last 20 years, the application has been expanded to multiple crops and new applications in the field, storage and transport.

Their focus on quality and freshness has led to the evolution of their solution portfolio beyond ethylene management to include fungicides, coatings and digital platforms, including FreshCloud™ for quality control and wireless room monitoring with the Strella sensor.

“The SmartFresh quality system has really changed the way we think about our post-harvest process and our decision-making regarding the storage and marketing of our fruit. I can’t imagine how we would manage a process in the future without this collaboration with AgroFresh,” said Moelich.