Chiltern Farms at Vyeboom , Western Cape has truly revolutionised its business after installing the ViTrax system. Since the first pallet tracking installation in 1999, the 30 000-bin packhouse has evolved to bin tracking, packing material tracking, invoicing, payment to growers, RF scanning and carton scanning.

Managing director of Chiltern Farms, Des Mudge , commented, “The greatest benefit from the system has been the extraction of information, which we can then manipulate according to our needs. This is a management tool of the highest degree. And from an operations point of view, ViTrax makes things happen.”

He waxed lyrical about the system’s invoicing capabilities. “It took us away from Excel and the accompanying huge spreadsheets. We can now invoice cartons to customers and that same data is used to pay our growers. The time saved is significant.”

Mudge said FarSoft rose to the occasion in streamlining automatic grower invoices. Nothing slips through the cracks. When the cartons are captured on the packing line, the information, including packing material used, is transferred for invoicing. “And because we can now see irrefutable proof of which packers are working and those that aren’t, productivity has received a much-needed boost.

Packhouse manager Justin Mudge singled out the spot-numbering in the cold store. “It has aided pallet identification and stock rotation greatly – absolutely essential in our business.” He praised FarSoft’s high service levels and adaptability. ” Freddie and his team keep abreast of our fast-changing operations and facilitating ease-of-use is never too much trouble.”

Justin Mudge agreed that the ease of extracting information from ViTrax had the biggest influence on the Chiltern business. “We’ll continue our positive relationship with FarSoft and hope to add value to additional module development with our feedback.”