Every September, thousands of people from the fresh produce industry pour into the halls of Asia Fruit Logistica (AFL) in Hong Kong. This year’s show has smashed previous attendance records, marking a 22% increase on last year with over 11,000 visitors from 74 different countries.
AFL is Compac’s premier Asia-Pacific based show, attracting the highest level buyers and trade professionals from across Asia and abroad. It’s no longer just about walking the halls and meeting with clients. As the fresh produce industry steps into the fourth industrial revolution, these tradeshows are becoming increasingly more sophisticated.
Disruptive technologies such as the Internet of Things (IOT), big data, vision and robotics are changing the world of fresh produce
This year’s events boasted a world-class line-up of speakers offering leading-edge insights on the latest industry research and technologies. These events covered topics such as the future of the Chinese market with expert analysis from the head of the Boston Consulting Group’s China Center for Customer Insight, the latest trends in Asian perishable supply chains, and the impact of disruptive information technology on traditional fresh produce trade practices.
We were proud to see the presentations given by valued customer Loren Zhao of Fruitday and our own CTO Ken Moynihan, who spoke at the Smart Horticulture Asia conference. Ken has been speaking at a few global events this year with a focus on how data and integration are changing the fresh produce supply chain and delivering a new level of brand protection for produce growers and packers. 
“The fresh brand promise is a promise of quality, consistency, safety and availability; but meeting that promise means supply chains are becoming increasingly complex… this means that these supply chains need to be deeply integrated, and data is at the heart of that deep integration. It’s the brands that can master data that we think will be the winners.” - Ken Moynihan, Compac CTO
Fruitday brand gets a sweet boost from Inspectra technology
Each year at AFL we see an increasingly quality conscious and brand aware Asian market, particularly amongst Chinese consumers. It was also great to see so many of our New Zealand customers in attendance as Asia is a big focus for them as well. Competition in China for upmarket imported produce is starting to grow as local suppliers embrace the art of branding. A great example of this is our Chinese e-commerce customer, Fruitday, who have delivered a brand based on sweetness thanks to Inspectra technology. 
“Our main business is on imported fruit, but we would love to tap into quality products from our own country. This project initially started last year. We went to many growing regions to see different products, and we settled on the Bingtang oranges grown in Yunnan. This product is very special. In order to establish our brand, we thought about how to convey the idea and value of standardized fruit products to the consumers. We want them to know about brix degree and its value – sweetness level can be accurately detected and we can be confident and stay genuine to our customers, to make sure they get the correct information.” – Loren Zhao, Fruitday Co-Founder
Success with innovative partners like Fruitday shows Asia’s importance as a key growth market for Compac. We continue to invest in resources on the ground in China, including our new manufacturing and support facility in Kunshan, and service teams in Guangzhou and Chengdu.
“China is a strong developing market. A lot of people are just entering the market and investing a lot of money in the fresh produce industry. We have very good technology, well adapted to big and delicate produce. Our mission is to understand very precisely our customers’ needs in order to create the best solution for them.” – Bob Shaw, Compac Asia Sales Director
With Asia Fruit Logistica wrapped up for another year, we now turn our attention to PMA Fresh Summit in Orlando. Compac will be at booth 3711 with a focus on what integration, data and uptime looks like for the fresh produce industry. We will also be demonstrating our industry leading Spectrim and Sizer platforms and you can let us know you're coming below.
