A UNIQUE tracking system that records every detail of a mango's journey from farm to retailer has helped reduce waste for Australia's largest mango producer.
Manbulloo Mangoes, which specialises in the Kensington Pride variety, has seven farms spread between the Northern Territory, the Townsville region and the Atherton Tableland.
The company, which started in 2005 with the acquisition of three farms, at Katherine, Horseshoe Lagoon, and Laudham Park near Townsville, before expanding in 2014-15, now have 125,000 trees that bear fruit from mid-September until March.
They turn out millions of mangoes a year supplying to Coles and their select export markets in South Korea, China, the US and Canada.
For the past seven years, Manbulloo has been working with GS1 Australia to implement whole-of-chain tracking using technological advancements and data sharing.
Manbulloo quality manager Scott Ledger said it had been difficult to share information including fruit temperature and ripeness levels throughout the supply chain as each partner operated their own information system.
"Our supply chain was fragmented and errors occurred during marketing as timely information was difficult to obtain, or we weren't able to share it efficiently," Mr Ledger said.
He said other members had to rely on Manbulloo to provide that information directly via email, or verbally, which could lead to error or confusion.
They wanted to create one product identification and traceability system that the whole supply chain could access.
This included implementing a carton identifier that could be scanned to identify the history of the fruit as it moved through the chain.
Manbulloo CEO Marie Piccone said a whole-of-chain information system was needed to share information that was timely and accurate.
While Manbulloo already had GS1 barcoding embedded in their operations, with each piece of fruit identified by a GS1 Databar label, they decided to expand the use of the GS1 barcodes to provide improved communications and traceability up and down the supply chain.
Mr Ledger said this meant partners didn't need to upgrade scanning technologies.
"GS1 integrates with other systems including our crop management program and blockchain," he said. "The collective of information is available in real-time and allows for greater data insights.
"This leads to an increase and improvement in product knowledge, inventory control and product quality, all creating a better consumer experience."
The mango trays used to transport the fruit also required unique identification so they switched their Freshtrack Gateway implementation to print GS1 serialised barcodes on their tray labels.
This allowed every tray on every pallet from all seven Manbulloo farms and five pack houses to be tracked up and down the chain.
With the process now in place Manbulloo can enter a carton number and see throughout the supply chain, from packing shed to retailer, where all related mangoes are from that batch.
"We can now track every carton and every batch through the supply chain, from packing shed to retail shelf," Mr Ledger said.
"Our order rejections at the retailer's DC have reduced to very low levels. This is a major win for everyone in the supply chain as it saves an enormous amount of time and money."