This tracking tool seeks to digitize quality assurance

California-based shelf-life extension company Apeel Sciences has launched measuring and monitoring software called RipeTrack. The suite of tools provides suppliers, distributors and grocery retailers insight into produce ripeness through a fully digitized platform that ultimately results in measurably higher quality produce for consumers, according to a news release.

“Before launching this system, testing ripeness at different stages of the supply chain was a time-consuming process that yielded inconsistent results, and a disconnect with what a retail buyer expected on shelves to drive sales,” Ryan Fink, Apeel’s senior vice president of the Americas, said in the release.

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Originally developed to support the avocado category, the RipeTrack offering is quickly growing to serve multiple produce categories and use cases in the supply chain. To capture additional quality attributes, Apeel is integrating its advanced imaging capabilities into RipeTrack to accurately and nondestructively assess factors of ripeness such as dry matter, brix and color, according to the release.

The new RipeTrack tools can determine the ripeness and quality of produce instantly with nondestructive tools, such as a durometer. The durometer is a method of testing produce firmness that has proven to be three times more accurate than industry standards, the release said.

Using the tool, once produce information is gleaned, ripeness and quality information is automatically input into a cloud-based data management system and can be digitally shared with team members for analysis. RipeTrack also uses artificial intelligence technology to determine the ideal ripe date for a piece of produce by analyzing data such as country of origin, pack date and data from a durometer, allowing suppliers and retailers to make informed decisions about shipping and merchandising the fruit, according to the release.

“We developed RipeTrack to optimize the decades-old process and give the produce industry more insight into the sales-driving quality attributes of their programming, resulting in more product delivered to required specifications and less product wasted,” Fink said.

The inspection platform was developed in partnership with retail quality control teams and enables ripeness data to be instantly captured and analyzed during the ripening, shipping and receiving processes. For suppliers and ripeners, RipeTrack has the capabilities to inform shipping and logistics decisions and provide increased confidence that produce will be delivered to specifications requested by a retailer, reducing the inconsistencies that can occur at the store level, the release said.

What’s more, inspection data from across a retailer or supplier’s operations is then aggregated into a program dashboard, allowing decision makers to assess whether the produce is meeting their goals for ripeness or freshness. Armed with insight, users can execute data-backed decisions that can improve their supply chain, logistics or merchandising, and deliver higher-quality produce on shelf for consumers, according to the release.

“RipeTrack has received great feedback in initial trials with retailers and produce distributors,” Fink said. “Users recognize how it simplifies the ripeness testing and measurement process and are immediately seeing the benefit of the increased visibility. Many retailers understand the sales value of offering ripe produce to meet customer demand and drive sales, now they have a system of tools that will allow them to execute these programs with confidence.”