Project Description

Streamlining the supply chain

As part of international impact investment company, Durabilis, Fair Fruit works with about 1,500 smallholding farmer cooperatives and associations in Guatemala. The company’s main packaging and production facility is based in Antigua, where vegetables are prepared for the European export market

The client challenge

Fair Fruit’s expansion into the central east highlands around Salamá facilitated valuable access to its supply chain for many more smallholders. However the sixhour journey to Antigua created cost inefficiencies due to logistical challenges and food loss. With Salamá accounting for a large proportion of Fair Fruit’s total production, the company needed a regional production facility.

cold room and beans

The InspiraFarms solution

InspiraFarms provided a cold room with primary processing facility, allowing onsite sorting and trimming prior to shipment to Antigua for packaging. In 2015 Fair-Fruit decided to place an InspiraFarms satellite Cold Storage and Food Processing Facility (an FP180) at their production site in Salamá. Fair-Fruit hoped to reduce produce spoilage and dehydration due to long distance transportation, as well as save money on their overall processing and transportation costs as their motivation for installing the FP180 at their production site.

The success story

Fair Fruit’s InspiraFarms plant currently handles 40% of the company’s produce. With further expansion planned to facilitate packaging and labeling, the Salamá facility will be able to dispatch French beans, baby corn, squash and sweet potato directly to port, creating a more streamlined supply chain and greater profit potential.

According to Miguel Basterrechea at Fair-Fruit, “For many years we’ve budgeted 30% in quality and dehydration carrying the product for such long distances. Cooling down the product and working on quality close to harvest fields can reduce these losses in between 10% and 15%. With around 2,000,000 pounds harvested in a year we are talking of 240,000 more pounds per year, and at a US$0.73 per pound, this generates a net total of US$175,000 per year”.

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