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178 Chapter 6 • Software and Vendor Selection

VARIABLE INPUTS/CONSISTENT OUTPUTS
The challenge for most fruit and vegetable manufacturers is that ingredients come out of
the ground and can have various characteristics (an orange picked in June may have differ-
ent characteristics than an orange picked in August), while customers require the finished
product to be consistent. To manage variable characteristics of lots, enterprise resource
planning (ERP) solutions must track lot attributes; few offer this capability. Typically, fruit
and vegetable attributes are captured such as Brix/percent solids, pH/acidity, and other
similar characteristics. When a lot is issued to a production batch, systems such as escape
velocity systems (EVS) calculate the expected chemistry of the finished product and
compare it to the specifications defined for the finished good. If the batch is out of the
required specifications, the system warns the production manager.

PURCHASING CITRUS
In the citrus industry, most juicers do not purchase pounds, gallons, tons of fruit; they
purchase “pound solids.” Essentially juicers are purchasing the sugar that is in the fruit, not
the water content. Sometimes a trailer of oranges can be 5,000-pound solids; sometime the
same volume can be 4,000-pound solids if the fruit has more water and less sugar. The
difficulty is they will issue the fruit into a batch by weight or volume. The relationship from
pound solids to weight or volume is not a linear relationship; therefore, the technology
solution must have the capacity to facilitate multiple, nonrelated units of measure on a lot
basis. The O2 ERP system is one of the very few technologies that provide this capability
for juicers.

CUSTOMER/ITEM SPECIFICATION
According to Evan Garber, President of EVS (www.evs-sw.com), “Many times a customer
will have specifications for a juice that is different than the company’s specification for the
product . . . the company manufacturers orange juice with between 30 and 40 percent
solids, a client may require that the orange juice that they get be 37–40 percent solids. ERP
solutions must allow a fruit beverage company to manufacture to the company’s specifica-
tion, the customer’s specification or when picking for a sales order, perform a “best-fit” of
existing products to meet the customer’s requirement.”

GROWER ACCOUNTING IS COMPLEX
Sometimes fruit and vegetable manufacturers purchase from growers. The accounting process
is often complex and must produce settlement sheets (based on when finished goods made by
the material purchased is actually sold), including charge backs and commissions. Additionally,
the technology solution must be able to keep vendor-specific information about purchased
items, such as whether they use pesticides, fertilizers, acreage, and other pertinent data.

QUALITY CONTROL: FOOD SAFETY INCLUDING HACCP
The usual quality control and food safety issues apply to fruit and vegetable beverage with
some additional concerns. Some of the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP)
are for sterilizing the fruit upon receipt (such as bleach concentration, temperature on the
pasteurizer, and metal detection on the finished goods).