Building lasting relationships by delivering freshness

The National Fruit Processing Factory, Pakistan, has been growing, processing and exporting oranges for over 60 years and is now one of the country’s largest exporters of kinnows and mandarins. Over the years, they have also added mangoes, onions and potatoes to their impressive roster. The company now exports about 2,000 refrigerated cargo containers and 200 dry containers every year.

They are focused on building lasting relationships with their customers as part of their core DNA and are always looking for ways to upgrade facilities, improve services and maintain the highest quality of produce. The business has grown steadily in the last 20 years as demand rose exponentially and they started expanding their global reach.

Racing against time and space to preserve produce quality

The company was tackling challenges on a couple of fronts, which were severely affecting exports. First, they were able to export only about 50% of their produce, largely due to a lack of container availability. The company also lost produce from damage during transit as maintaining the quality and freshness of the fruits and vegetables was a major issue. There was a distinct lack of inventory visibility over the cargo’s journey as coordinating between multiple vendors became time-consuming and cumbersome. National Fruit’s supply chain managers were juggling multiple issues like last-mile reliability while racing against time to get the fresh fruits to their destination in good condition.

Choosing reliability to overcome risks

The answers to these problems came from a longstanding relationship of 18 years between National Fruit and Maersk to build and streamline their supply chain. One of the first issues we helped solve was sourcing refrigerated cargo containers for their exports by ensuring their guaranteed availability whenever the company needed them. We also built a container terminal about 5 km from National Fruit’s packing houses in Bhalwal, which helped drastically cut down on time spent waiting for empty containers.

Ensuring uncompromised quality for the long run

The proof of this partnership can be seen in the success of National Fruit’s business. The company has grown 100 times in the last 4-5 years alone and continues to expand. Maersk is now carrying more than 1,000 forty-foot equipment (FFE) containers of citrus, mangoes and potatoes every year, up nearly 25% from 2016. The relationship between the two companies continues to deepen and offers great benefits for National Fruit.