By Kevin Shoemaker, Senior Product Strategist, ExtendAg I recently spent time visiting several key customers at their operations during peak harvest season: not in a conference room, not on a video call, but on the receiving pad, at the grading table, and on the packaging line, at the absolute height of their operations. There is a reason we visit specialty crop
Supply chain disruptions are no longer rare events. From natural disasters and geopolitical instability to trade disputes and technological failures, potential threats to your supply chain operations continue to multiply—and the negative impacts are increasingly severe. For food processors, the stakes are even higher. Your business operations depend on raw materials that are perishable, seasonal, and subject to external factors
The Orchestra Problem: Why Your Equipment Needs a Conductor Walk through any crop processing facility and you’ll see an impressive collection of equipment. Conveyors moving product. Scales capturing weights. Grading stations making quality decisions. Sorting equipment directing product to the right destinations. Individually, each piece of equipment does its job. But here’s where things get interesting: are they working together,
A fruit processing plant lives and dies by its ability to capture quality at its peak. The window between “perfectly ripe” and “past prime” can be measured in hours, and every operational decision either preserves that quality or lets it slip away. Equipment matters, obviously. Extractors, evaporators, aseptic fillers. But here’s what doesn’t get talked about enough: the operational systems
Your evaporators are running at peak efficiency. Your optical sorters catch defects human eyes would miss. Your filling lines hit rated capacity day after day. So why does every tomato season still feel like you’re holding everything together with duct tape and caffeine? Here’s what we’ve learned working with processors across North America: the biggest operational challenges aren’t happening on
By John Roos, General Manager, ExtendAg As 2025 comes to a close, one reality stands out across our industry: uncertainty is constant. Changes in consumer demand, weather volatility, supply variability, labor constraints, margin pressure, and rising expectations around traceability and transparency have fundamentally changed how processors must operate. In this environment, success is no longer defined by how well organizations manage complexity after the fact, but by
Spreadsheet-based pack planning worked fine when supply chains were simpler. That was a long time ago. The spreadsheet approach made sense when grower relationships were more local, variables were fewer, and margins were forgiving enough to absorb the occasional surprise. But the environment has shifted underneath that model. Tighter margins, compliance requirements, traceability, grower consolidation, and changing growing conditions have
Every crop processor runs on information. How much is coming in tomorrow? Which growers are running behind? What’s sitting in storage? When will the next production run finish? The difference between smoothly running operations and constant chaos often comes down to how quickly you can answer those questions. Can you pull up the answer in seconds, or does someone need
By the ExtendAg Team As California’s 2025 harvest season wraps up, specialty crop processors are entering one of the most critical — yet often overlooked — phases of the year: post-harvest evaluation. This isn’t just a time to look back; it’s a chance to uncover insights that will define next season’s success. At the CLFP Board of Directors Meeting on
ExtendAg is the industry leading purpose-built solution for the complex needs of raw ingredient processors.
The specialty crop processors using our solutions include:
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ExtendAg is part of Cultura Technologies, a growing collaborative of people, businesses and insights that enables better decisions to build a thriving and resilient agri-food system.
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