Quality issues have impact on bottom line for T&G
Quality issues impacting the 2022 apple crop, rising costs and Covid-19 pushed fresh produce exported T&G Global into a financial loss last year.
FirstPick.co.nz was developed in-house by T&G’s IT team and enables customers to order fresh fruit and vegetables in real-time from a desktop, tablet or smartphone 24/7, the company says in its latest newsletter.
Jeremy Miller, T&G head of digital design, developed the web-app and says, in the newsletterm the business is targeting 40% usage over the next 18 months after a successful trial in Auckland, Hamilton, Taupo and Tauranga.
“Roughly 30% of our customers visit one of our 12 New Zealand market floors each day and we expect this will continue for some time. FirstPick future proofs our business and provides customers, especially those short on time, to easily place an order in real-time with full visibility of what is available on our market floors,” Milton says.
Once a customer places an order it’s emailed to their nearest T&G market floor for fulfilment by a product specialist such as Graham Cull who has worked on the Mt Wellington market floor for 15 years. He says a key benefit of FirstPick is better communication with customers.
“I can see the whole day in front of me when I log in. FirstPick gives me much greater visibility and I can communicate directly with the customer instantly if anything is short like mushrooms for example. We can have a conversation through the site and you get to know the customer really well which means they trust me to select the best produce for them,” Milton says.
The site is currently accessible only to T&G’s new and existing customers who buy from our produce markets in Whangarei, Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Gisborne, Hastings, Palmerston North, New Plymouth, Wellington, Nelson, Christchurch and Dunedin.
Milton says T&G has also received interest from overseas customers and is looking into options for expanding FirstPick internationally.
