Frozen vegetable supplier compares Ishida with the competition

12/05/2014

An interview with the top management of Fruveco at its Murcia site reveals that factors influencing purchasing decisions in the fast-moving frozen vegetables market go beyond throughput to include reliability, efficiency and customer service.

Located in south-eastern Spain, in an area that lays claim to the title “Vegetable Garden of Europe”, Fruveco SA has built a strong reputation for the reliable, continuous supply of quality frozen vegetables. The company is Europe’s highest volume supplier of frozen broccoli, for example, and also supplies frozen ready meals and snacks, largely vegetable-based. Over 90% of its output is packed as own-label brands for supermarkets, while 10% is sold to smaller outlets in Germany & Eastern Europe.

A major strength of Fruveco is the ability to supply large volumes, often at short notice.

“If a customer suddenly needs hundreds of tonnes for a special promotion,” says Manager Francisco E. Ramón Juárez, “we can respond very quickly. Because of our generally large volume and the need for fast response, reliability is even more important than speed among the qualities we look for in new equipment.”

Colour sorting

Fruveco have a reputation for purchasing the most up-to-date equipment. At their highly efficient factory, vegetables are washed, blanched, quick frozen in one of the company’s five freezer tunnels at -40°C and colour-sorted before entering the packing process.

Fruveco and Ishida

Over the last few years Fruveco has bought five Ishida 14-head weighers to keep pace with its expanding business. A standard Ishida configuration for frozen vegetables, each one is equipped with a timing hopper and its contact parts, including the 3-litre hoppers, are embossed to reduce product adhesion. The weighers are filling pillow bags at target weights ranging from 300g to 2.5kg. Inviting comparison In the same period, Fruveco also bought a weigher of a similar specification from a competitor of Ishida and has compared the two makes on a number of parameters. “On speed, they were roughly comparable,” commentsFrancisco Juárez. “However, the Ishidas are consistently more accurate, with giveaway at 1% or less, compared with 2-3% for the other brand. The Ishidas are also more consistent performers, with fewer missed cycles”.

Ishida efficiency

Efficiency is taken very seriously at Fruveco. The company measures line efficiency daily, monthly and yearly.

“For the five lines with Ishida multiheads, efficiency averages 87-90%, and that includes scheduled downtime for cleaning and maintenance” says Francisco Juárez.

Importance of service

“For me, an important factor has been the level of service and support provided by Ishida, which has a major office in this country as well as an excellent distributor, CIMA” concludes Francisco A. Ramón Gómez, CEO of Fruveco.

“Both company and distributor have skilled, qualified people who can get to us quickly, and who take it seriously if there is any threat to our production or our delivery time to our customers. This is not true for the other weigher supplier, where there has been a definite lack of responsiveness. I put this down to a lack of resources here in Spain but, whatever the reason, any problems that have occurred have cost us money.”