“Our collaboration with ProducePay empowers us to procure premium international fruit year-round. With a continuous supply, we can proactively assist retailers in anticipating potential shortages and making timely adjustments.”
Jack Campbell
CEO of Four Star Fruit.
Company
Four Star Fruit
Location
California, USA
Profile
Grower and marketer of table grapes
Challenge
Deliver retailers
year-round supply
of grapes with fragmented and opaque global supply chain.
Solution
ProducePay Predictable Commerce Program
Four Star Fruit is one of the largest table grape growers, marketers, and distributors in the United States. With over 30 years of successful family history in table grape farming, this third-generation business has built a reputation for quality and reliability. Partnering with nine of the largest retailers in the US, Four Star Fruit provides fresh produce across the country.
The challenge:
Deliver retailers year-round supply of grapes with fragmented and opaque global supply chain.
“Our primary challenge within the supply chain is the fragmentation of the industry by numerous marketers. We face difficulties in obtaining clear insights into industry sales, data, and the flow of products from the field to the retail stores. The presence of multiple marketers, each handling their own sales and logistics, is resulting in widespread inefficiencies.”
Jack Campbell
CEO of Four Star Fruit.
US consumers increasingly expect access to high-quality, sustainable fresh produce 365 days a year. However, retailers face challenges meeting this demand due to extreme pricing volatility, supply chain fragmentation, speculation, and increasing disruptions.
With operations in California and parts of Mexico, Four Star Fruit was only able to meet demand during peak grape production in late spring, summer and early fall, when those regions produced fruit.
To meet demand year-round, Four Star Fruit needed growers in new regions, which came with various challenges. These included unfamiliar cultures, agricultural practices, exacerbated supply chain variables, and navigating complex legal agreements with new growers, which required bilingual legal counsel and precise language. Additionally, managing multiple suppliers in a volatile fresh produce supply chain only meant higher transaction costs.
Above all, they needed to ensure the grapes from these new growers would uphold the same level of quality that Four Star Fruit’s longstanding retail partners were used to. This expansion would require a significant amount of time and resources, including hiring staff for quality control and managing increased volume, building and implementing custom technology for data and order management, and investment in overall infrastructure. Putting this in place would require substantial investment and consequently risk.
The solution:
Create an integrated grape supply chain through ProducePay’s Predictable Commerce Program.
“Consistent, quality table grapes can be difficult to procure throughout the year, but we’re changing that. With this partnership, we can now offer a solution to help retailers meet consumer demand during low availability months, creating a more predictable way of doing business for stakeholders in the fresh supply chain – for table grapes and beyond.”
Jack Campbell
CEO of Four Star Fruit
In response to their retail partners’ demand for year-round supply at stable pricing, Four Star Fruit partnered with ProducePay to establish a Predictable Commerce Program for table grapes.
This program provided the pivotal support and infrastructure for Four Star to expand globally, and efficiently scale their volume while ensuring delivery of high-quality produce. The 2023 table grape program resulted in significant growth for Four Star Fruit’s total imported and purchased volume, and a 80% reduction in retail rejection rate.
How did Four Star Fruit achieve this?
Secured
supply
Leveraged ProducePay’s global network of verified sustainable growers, ensuring committed supply.
Gained end-to-end visibility
Through our on-site agronomists, real-time order tracking and custom-built QC order management dashboard.
Improved
liquidity
With faster payments to their growers, enhancing the management of their expanded network.
