Australia’s largest processor and packer of potatoes and onions, Mitolo Family Farms, has engaged New Zealand fresh produce software provider Radford Software to streamline operations across the entire value chain, from soil to supermarket.
Radford Software chief executive officer Adam Cuming said he was delighted that South Australian-based Mitolo Family Farms had chosen Radfords to support its next phase of growth.
“Onboarding a customer of Mitolo’s calibre reinforces our international growth strategy as we continue to focus on building client relationships across Australia and into the North American market,” Mr Cuming said.
“The partnership developed during the global pandemic which continues to present logistical challenges. However, we’re proud to have secured Mitolo’s confidence over the past 12 months within the constraints of the pandemic, without having set foot on the farm,” he said.
Mitolo Family Farms is a fully integrated business encompassing seed development, farming, processing, packing and distribution. It produces multiple lines over 40,000 hectares in three states for domestic and export markets. Radfords will be involved in its onion and potato operations.
Growth inspired new objectives
He said sustained success and future growth ambitions inspired Mitolo to rethink the way it grew, packed and sold produce – with the objective of better integrating all aspects of the business, improving customer service and finding new administrative efficiencies. In early 2020, Mitolo went looking for a software systems partner to transform operations and prepare the business for more customers and new markets.
“For Mitolo, the choice of Radfords as our primary implementation partner for our new ERP system became obvious throughout the selection process. The product will provide a relatively off-the-shelf fresh produce solution for our fairly complex application requirements from growing seed through to dispatch.
As well as the solution, what differentiated Radfords was their practical, on-the-ground knowledge of fresh produce and a genuine willingness to help us succeed in our project.
“To date as we move through detailed design, that has not wavered and we have a high level of confidence in the Radfords team,” Mitolo Family Farms chief commercial officer Sue Edwards said.
Radfords will provide operational-specific platforms to transform Mitolo’s current manual systems and processes across the entire business – from farm management and product traceability to sales and marketing, business reporting and planning.
As well as Radfords’ core traceability and inventory management solution, FreshPack, Mitolo will adopt Radfords’ FreshGrow and FreshQuality platforms, together with its data warehousing and business intelligence tool, FreshInsights.
FreshGrow is Radfords’ end-to-end management solution, streamlining day-to-day operations on farms and orchards, ensuring input and resource data is captured and maintained in one central location. FreshQuality simplifies the QC process and recording of produce quality assessments, capturing test results throughout the supply chain – from soil to supermarket.
The first phase of the Mitolo project is due to go live in May 2022.
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