Speaking with a common language

• GS1 standards for fruit and vegetables in Europe – Workshop at SanLucar

(Valencia, Spain – 25^th of April 2018).- How can data and information exchange be standardized to make the fruit and vegetable industry more competitive? Numerous companies are working on this topic within the framework of the international organization GS1.

Image of the participants in the GS1 meeting

Representatives of the European working group, dedicated to the design and implementation of global standards for the supply chain, met in the headquarters of SanLucar in Valencia. The premium brand for fruit and vegetables is a member of GS1 and one of the few companies in the industry that has an internal department working on data standardization.

Not Deutschland, not Germany – but DE

During the two-day meeting, the participants discussed the importance of a printed guide explaining how to label fruit and vegetables and how to communicate among partners correctly – on the basis of consistent standards.

Especially in the international business, communication problems and collisions with legal regulations in the respective countries occur repeatedly. Even with the indication of origin there can be difficulties: Not Deutschland, not Germany – DE is the only correct ISO code on a fruit label, in the digital exchange to clearly designate where the product come from.

SanLucar started to work on the standardization three years ago, says Christoph Waltert, Commercial Planning Director at SanLucar. Since then, there have been significantly fewer errors in orders, deliveries or invoicing – and we save so much money. Waltert says that he can only encourage other companies to implement the GS1 guide for standardization. “The standardization of data is paying off.”

About SanLucar

SanLucar, the premium brand for fruit and vegetables, is a globally positioned enterprise with subsidiaries in Germany, Austria, Spain, Tunisia, South Africa, Ecuador and Benelux. In 1993, the company was founded by Stephan Rötzer in Munich and employs more than 3,200 people today, the majority of them on the company’s own farms on three continents. With a range of about 90 fruit and vegetable products from more than 35 countries, SanLucar is the brand with the broadest assortment in the retail trade. In line with the philosophy of “Taste in harmony with man and nature”, SanLucar is a responsible player on the global fruit and vegetable market and is currently expanding into the Arab Gulf States, Russia, China and Canada.

Download the press release here.