Before adopting Clarifresh, T&G Global faced challenges in maintaining consistent quality across its global operations. The company has 1,600 team members spread across 13 countries, and a complex supply chain that includes breeding, growing, packing, marketing, and exporting fruit. Ensuring uniform quality standards across such a vast and complex organization was an ongoing challenge that became more difficult as T&G grew.
Fragmented data, manual reporting, and quality assessments meant that T&G at times had to resort to reactive decision-making without the certainty of data driven insights.
By partnering with Clarifresh, T&G is building a more modern, AI-powered quality management system that gives them the real-time insights they need to always stay ahead of the curve.Fragmented data, manual reporting, and quality assessments meant that T&G at times had to resort to reactive decision-making without the certainty of data driven insights.
By partnering with Clarifresh, T&G is building a more modern, AI-powered quality management system that gives them the real-time insights they need to always stay ahead of the curve.
T&G Global: A Leader in Premium Fresh Produce
T&G Global is a vertically integrated fresh produce company specializing in premium fruit brands, including EnvyTM, JazzTM, and the newly launched JoliTM apple. The company operates across multiple growing locations worldwide, delivering high-quality fresh produce to the global market.
“When you’re building brands globally, it’s really important that there’s a level of consistency and quality,” said Richard Iredalel, Global Quality Projects Lead at T&G Global. “Our customers buy into that consistency, so it’s critical that we deliver the same high standards across all our growing regions.”
The Challenge: Inconsistent, Manual, and Time-Consuming Quality Control
Before implementing Clarifresh, T&G’s quality control processes were at times fragmented, varying across locations. Key challenges included:
- Inconsistent Data: Different teams used different terminology for the same issues, making it difficult to compare and track quality issues globally.
- Manual Inspections: Some quality data relied on phone and email conversations rather than structured, digital data.
- Limited Ability to Make Proactive Calls: With scattered data sources and delayed reporting, teams often reacted to quality issues rather than preventing them.
- Subjectivity in Inspections: Variability in human judgment led to inconsistencies in quality assessments.
- Disruptions from External Factors: Climate events, such as cyclones in New Zealand, added further complexity to quality management.
“Data is Power for Us”: T&G Taps AI for Real-Time Quality Insights
Since adopting Clarifresh, T&G has revamped its quality control operations through AI-driven automation and real-time analytics. T&G are rolling the tool out across multiple global locations.
Key Benefits:
Real-Time, Data-Driven Insights: T&G now has accurate, instant reporting that teams can use to make proactive decisions, minimizing losses (and even preventing them).
A Unified Quality Language: Clarifresh has digitized T&G’s quality specifications, eliminating inconsistencies in reporting.
AI-Powered Inspections: By using smartphone-based image analysis, Clarifresh reduced reliance on subjective assessments, which is helping to drive the ambition of global consistency in standards
Brand Management Assurance: T&G uses Clarifresh’s AI-driven color detection to ensure premium apples meet strict branding standards.
Scalability Across the Supply Chain: Within just one year, three of T&G’s eight growing regions adopted Clarifresh, with plans to expand to all locations and 50+ market destinations.
As Richard explained: “If there’s a dispute, we can rely on AI-driven data rather than opinions. We’re willing to challenge if we feel we have the right data-driven story, and with Clarifresh, that story tells itself. So it’s made it our whole supply chain much more transparent, as well as more efficient”.
The Future: AI-Powered Defect Detection and Full Supply Chain Integration
Looking ahead, T&G plans to further integrate Clarifresh across its entire global operation.
Next Steps:
- Expanding Clarifresh adoption to all growing regions and market destinations.
- Implementing AI-powered defect detection, to eliminate subjectivity.
- Strengthening data-backed rejection management, reducing disputes and financial losses.
- Enhancing retail collaboration by closing the data loop between T&G and grocery partners.
As Richard put it: “We were making good decisions, but many times they were reactive decisions. With Clarifresh, we’re finally moving from reactive to proactive quality control, which is exactly what we need for the future.”
Why Choose Clarifresh?
For too long, quality control in fresh produce has been a game of reaction: scrambling to fix issues after they surface, negotiating claims, and making judgment calls based on fragmented data.
Clarifresh changes this equation, turning quality into a proactive, data-driven advantage. With Clarifresh, organizations like T&G are able to anticipate challenges before they become costly problems. Instead of fighting fires, their teams are making smarter decisions that benefit everyone in their ecosystem.
“Data is power for us. With Clarifresh, we can see the information, we can make the right decisions, save on rejections, and deliver better products to our customers. This is the power Clarifresh gives us.” – Richard Iredale, Global Quality Projects Lead at T&G Global
