Essential Fruit

The essential link in the supply chain for both growers and processors of fruit worldwide.

The Essentials

When you buy a pre-packed fruit salad, a juice-based drink or any other food product that contains real fruit, you probably don’t think too much about where that fruit came from.

We do. Because we helped put it there.

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Fruit Based Drink Products

What is the real essence of a fruit? Its exterior appearance, or the juice and goodness contained within?

How we help

Of course, it’s the latter – and at Essential Fruit that’s what we help our partners to sell and procure. You could say we’re the essential link in the supply chain for both growers and processors of fruit.

All those pieces of fruit that aren’t sold as fresh produce have to get from around the world to factories in Europe.

With tight lead times, potential for delays in the shipping chain and seasonal variations dictating which areas of the globe are the best sources at any one time, procuring fruit for industrial processing is a serious challenge for even the biggest food producers. There is always the risk that supply could be interrupted and production slowed or even stopped. The cost of such issues can be very great indeed.

That’s why manufacturers of fruit-based food products choose to work with Essential Fruit. We use a combination of our market knowledge, established supplier relationships and logistics expertise to secure a constant, uninterrupted supply of freshly-grown produce.

About us

With our fruit, which is always sold for processing and never for display, it’s all about what’s under the surface. It’s the same with our business: our strength comes from our position as market insiders.

Our strength as market insiders

To the public, who buy and consume the fruit products our customers make, we’re invisible. They don’t need to know we exist. But in reality, we’re a pivotal link in a supply chain with many variables and huge potential for things to go wrong.

The assurance of avoiding those negatives is why our partners work with us.

To our fruit-producing suppliers and food-manufacturing customers, we bring stability. If you’re a fruit grower, you know we can provide a reliable outlet for your processing fruit at a better price than is available locally.

For manufacturers, we enable factories to meet requirements whatever the season. At the same time, we reduce the logistical risks that come with the purchasing of a short shelf-life product from around the world.

How we assist growers

Major fruit growers worldwide supply us with fresh produce for the processing market. This is fruit that is not quite of the aesthetic standard required for it to be sold as whole pieces. It might be too big or small, be the wrong shape or have cosmetic defects, but otherwise it is perfectly sound for consumption.

How we assist growers

Growers don’t want this fruit to end up in the marketplace for netted or table fruit, because it can impact on their official business for those products. So we provide a safe, reliable, low-risk outlet for their processing grade fruit and ensure it only goes to the industrial market.

At the start of every season, fruit growers have to make considerable financial outlays on things such as packaging, pesticides and the hiring of staff. By choosing to work with us as their client, fruit producers ease their financial burden because our payment terms are short. In addition, we assist with their planning by offering guarantees such as fixed prices.

So as well as taking a whole section of produce off their hands, at the best price and ensuring it goes the European processing industry, we also help fruit growers to improve their overall revenue profile.

Serving food manufacturers

Our clients are food manufacturers who produce juices and other fruit-related products, which are then sold in major supermarkets and food service outlets.

Helping manufacturers

These firms cannot store their finished products because they have such a short lifespan. Many items will have a supermarket shelf life of around seven days. Manufacturers need to be producing items every day, hence their need for a constant stream of raw material: if supply is interrupted, then their factory is idle and costing a lot of money for no return. It’s then not long before they fall behind on what they can supply to retailers.

We work with our clients to ascertain their needs in terms of types of fruit and the quantities required. The fruit is also sourced according to required taste specifications.

Once we know what the manufacturer needs, we use our contacts around the world to source their ideal fruit. We also bring to bear the experience and knowledge we’ve built up over many years. We know the things that can and do go wrong, and help to foresee and avoid them. We’re also able to put plans in place to provide contingencies in the case of major interruptions to supply.

Our global reach

One of the reasons we’re able to maintain such a constant level of supply for fruit processors is that we work worldwide, sourcing from over 50 major producers.

Our global reach

For one half of the year we deal with northern hemisphere fruit suppliers; during the other half, we source produce from growers in the southern hemisphere.

We work a lot with suppliers in Egypt as well as the Mediterranean countries. Other major sources of fruit include Jamaica, Mexico, South Africa and Brazil. The majority of the fruit we deal with is citrus, with most of that being oranges. However we also trade in many other varieties too.

Our service includes price negotiation and taking responsibility for packing and shipping.

When you consider that some ships from the southern hemisphere will typically call in at around 15 ports on their journey, you begin to realise just how much potential there is for delays to occur. Sometimes a vessel will miss calling at a specific port in order to make up lost time.

That’s why we never rely on one shipment and co-ordinate our fruit supply to reduce the impact any single delay may have. In addition, we always maintain a certain amount of product in refrigerated storage. This is just in case we need to offset the result of delays, or perhaps help meet spikes in demand that can occur – during a spell of hot weather for example.

All of our product arrives in refrigerated containers, with the UK being the hub for our European continental business.

Around half of Essential Fruit’s business is with food manufacturers in the UK. Most of the rest is sold to processing companies in northern Europe.

As demand for fruit-based foods continues to increase worldwide, we look forward to working with our suppliers and serving our European clients for many years to come.

Contact us

To get in touch please complete our simple contact form below or alternatively you can call 01926 497630 or email info@essentialfruit.com.

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