Kiwis keep you in tip-top shape. So it's no wonder Zespri continues to grow, despite the health crisis dominating news bulletins. Belgium is a hub for Zespri kiwis: 70% of New Zealand production for Europe lands in Zeebrugge. The rest goes through the ports of Tarragona and Vado. At each refrigerated ship, it's all hands on deck for 250 employees. Also for IT.
In China, the kiwi has been popular for centuries. It was not until the early 20th century that the fruit arrived in New Zealand. In 1959, locals renamed the Chinese gooseberry a kiwi - the name of a hairy egg-shaped flightless bird, and, since World War I, also the nickname of New Zealanders. Thus, the kiwi became a national symbol. The fruit's real advance began around 1980.
The year around kiwis
Today, two countries produce more kiwis than New Zealand: China and Italy. Yet New Zealand's Zespri is by far the largest kiwi trader in the world. The company originated in 1997 as a cooperative of kiwi growers. Today, nearly 90% of the crop comes from New Zealand, with the rest provided mainly by Italy, Greece, France, South Korea and Japan.
"Kiwis are a seasonal product," says François Caudron, Senoir Business Analyst. "Most varieties are not hardy. Zespri therefore works with growers in both the southern and northern hemispheres. This allows us to market fruit 12 months of the year."
Quality in 12 steps
"We also maintain strict quality and sustainability standards. These are contained in a 12-step plan. What do the cultivation site and soil have to meet? How do you manage a kiwi orchard? How do you handle water sustainably? What about pesticides? What is the best time to harvest? What environmentally friendly packaging do you use? How do we optimally bring the kiwis to the customer? All our growers and partners share the same philosophy."
All hands on deck
For Europe, Belgium plays a key role. Zespri International (Europe) N.V. does sales, marketing and distribution of all Zespri kiwis for Europe. "We have sales offices in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK and Sweden," clarifies Filip Toelants, System Business Analyst. "From early spring to November, a reefer container ship with six to ten thousand pallets of kiwis arrives every week in Zeebrugge and the other ports. 250 employees have two days to unload the cargo. Nothing can go wrong during storage, packaging and distribution. Waiting time costs money, both for us and for the transporters.
"That has important implications for our IT. It has to be available 24/7 for much of the year. The systems must work, as must the connections between our systems and those of our partners. For logistics and financial management, we have been using SAP since 1998. That is integrated with Flex2B, Oryx's warehouse management system (WMS). The IT team in New Zealand manages the SAP system. The WMS runs on local European infrastructure, at three ports and a number of warehouses."
The bar is high
The Belgian IT team is small but driven, with two business analysts and an infrastructure manager. "To fulfill our commitments, we call on external competencies for specialized advice," François continues. "No blanks. Trust is important. You have to be able to tell each other what you think. The people you count on have to be there, even at peak times. We don't have time to hold hands. We value stability. Familiar faces who systematically build up their knowledge about the company and think along with us."
So the bar for technology partners is high. "That's why we were delighted when we were introduced to Rank1 a few years ago," François recalls. "We were looking for a party that could take over our help desk. Understanding our business was Rank1's starting point. We liked that, because it is the basis of a future-oriented infrastructure policy. Rank1 thinks along with our organization. They question things and suggest new ways of thinking. That way you stay alert. A consultant provides full-time first-line support to end users. Rank1 also manages and maintains with great expertise the servers and storage systems of our WMS."
Financial and logistical processes
"The same group of companies also turned out to include an SAP partner," Filip continued. "TheValueChain supports us with financial processes and EDI. Today, New Zealand is also preparing to switch to SAP S/4HANA. The financial and logistics processes are set up completely differently for us. TheValueChain maps out our requirements for them with great knowledge and insight, and makes impartial recommendations. TheValueChain team has experts in a variety of SAP domains. When necessary, our FI consultant deploys colleagues with the right know-how to solve our questions quickly and thoroughly. Top-notch."
"For example, our users wanted to integrate data from SAP into reports based on Microsoft Power BI. That led to an introduction to another company from the Gumption group. Bmatix has specialists in Power BI, and offers a tool for fast and efficient extraction and integration of data. It works perfectly. Our users wanted to know how to use Power BI optimally. In a few workshops, Bmatix taught us the tricks of the trade."
"It is nice to find all this knowledge in one group of companies," François concludes. "The people like us, and we share the same ambition: we want to be at the top in terms of quality. That keeps us on our toes. That, and the kiwis!"