Poupart 125th anniversary, Fruitnet Anniversary Special
27 October 2020
Heritage in variety
This year, Poupart is celebrating a 125th anniversary of its own. Fred Searle caught up with the various managing directors from Argent Group, Poupart Group and BerryWorld Group to hear how they have evolved over the years, and are adapting to today’s challenges.
PrepWorld Benjamin Olins, chief executive
How has coronavirus changed your operations?
At PrepWorld, our prepared fruit factory has continued to operate throughout the crisis. Measures including isolating shift crossings, staggered start times and one-way systems have all helped ensure the health and wellbeing of all our staff are protected. Since the outbreak, we have achieved uninterrupted supply to our customers, and also donated 67,000 fresh prepared fruit pots to the NHS frontline, at a time when healthy, nutritious food has been ever more important.
What new products has PrepWorld launched recently?
Between March and the end of September 2020, the team has developed multiple new product lines and ventured into new product categories to respond rapidly to changing consumer shopping habits. Closely monitoring the trends driving market performance and consumer behaviours has led to the development of products specifically for the online channel and an increase in solo and larger, family pack formats, offering more cost effective solutions to consumers and tapping into in-home snacking and scratch cooking growth.
How is PrepWorld using new technologies to make its production process more efficient?
We constantly look to stay close to new technological developments, from both a machinery and an IT perspective. Over the past four to five years, we’ve invested heavily in our physical processes and information flows. We now process one of the highest numbers of different fruit types in the industry, while also achieving one of the highest capacities. With access to real-time productivity insight and data, we are constantly monitoring, reviewing, and utilising this data to continuously improve, not only our efficiency, but most importantly, our quality and service to our customers.
