Zespri exports kiwifruit to more than 50 countries worldwide. “Our business is built on delivering nutritious fruit of the highest quality to consumers and we rely on a robust maturity clearance system to help us do that,” says Dave Scullin, Chief Digital Officer, Zespri.

Kiwifruit ripens at different rates around an orchard, depending on the soil it is grown in and its exposure to the elements. To ensure the fruit lands on consumers’ plates looking perfect and tasting great, the fruit must be harvested at just the right moment.  

In 2020, Zespri realised it had outgrown the two-decades-old process it used to assess fruit quality and its readiness for picking. “The process was very slow and unstable,” says Scullin.   

The complex legacy system featured very little automation, generated few insights and users often required technical help. Zespri urgently required help to develop a new and improved system for the forthcoming season. “We needed a modern and futureproof cloud-based data platform to help us automate,” says Scullin. 

Zespri called on Qrious for help.  

Qrious led the solution’s design and delivery using an iterative, semi-agile approach that involved working collaboratively with the client. The team built a multi-layered, API-based, web application on a Microsoft Azure platform, an entirely cloud-based and serverless solution. Using Azure SQL for its data store, it applies a range of external and internal APIs to share data with growers, packhouses and labs. 

The platform allows Zespri to manage computationally intensive workloads that vary in size and scale across the year, while removing the need for IT staff to manage the infrastructure. 

Analytics are integrated directly with the solution to unlock business intelligence dynamically. As the system integrates with others outside the Zespri environment, Qrious worked with Zespri to define security standards that carefully preserve the system’s integrity. 

Zespri and Qrious developed a maturity clearance system in six short months, entirely futureproofed and ready for the new harvest season.  

It is used by Zespri staff, packhouses, growers, and sampling and testing providers to perform the maturity clearance process. They all love the new, easy-to-use, web-based system, and integration with Zespri’s CRM means that users only see information relevant to their role.  

With data firmly at the heart of its business, Zespri is reaping the benefits. The system delivers comprehensive views into its data via user–friendly dashboards, generating essential insights at every fruit maturity clearance cycle, and providing transparency and building trust through accurate on-time information.  

“We can collaborate with our growers and packers to review and validate data, and make better business decisions, all in one place. That wasn't possible before,” says Scullin. “We can see trends appearing and address any issues or concerns around quality much sooner.”  

The new system gives Zespri and its industry partners full control of the produce measurement and payment calculation process, and Zespri can perform ‘what if’ analyses across its key businesses.  

Importantly, the new system automates the process for testing the quality of kiwifruit, making it simpler and faster to execute a complex process. A key step within the process is calculating the Taste Zespri Grade for each sample – a metric that assesses the kiwifruit quality, determines its value and recommends when the fruit should be picked. Automating this process means the calculation can be done for the grower in less than two hours.  

Using the solution’s advanced reporting and visualisation capabilities, users enjoy a feature-rich, immersive reporting experience without leaving the system. The integrated approach allows users to interact with secured reports when browsing through the web page, delivering a seamless experience at a much lower cost. 

Importantly, it’s a flexible solution. “By shifting the tool to the cloud, we have futureproofed ourselves. As we grow or shrink our operations, we can scale up or down, without the previous worries around performance or stability,” says Scullin.  

“And as a growing international business, we’re inspired by the potential to use this tool with our offshore growers. Because it’s entirely cloud based, it’s an easy lift and shift. We have even built-in multi-lingual capability. The future looks exciting.”