Garlic packing app:

Garlic packing app makes garlic packing fast and easy.   Garlic packing, sorting, processing, quality control, storage, sales & distribution is made easy with Farmsoft's garlic packing software app.

Garlic packing app:  

Garlic packing, sorting, processing, quality control, storage, sales & distribution is made easy with Farmsoft's garlic packing software app..  Software app for Garlic packing: grading, sorting, and processing.  Includes export, wholesale, and full packing management app.  Built around traceability & recalls:  bar-code inventory, B2B Customer Portal, Shop front,  FARM MANAGEMENT OPTION and more...  Farmsoft provides complete management for onion  packing, broccoli packing, citrus packing, pepper packing, tomato packing, avocado packing, potato packing.  Salad packing, Loose leaf lettuce and other fresh produce such as spinach, rucola, chicory, watercress.  Cucumber packing. Citrus packing app for lemon, orange, mandarin, tangerine, clementine.  Asparagus packing.  

Inventory

Manage incoming Garlic inventory, capture supplier details, traceability and costs (optionally capture on PO in advance), create inventory & pallet labels, record storage location of inventory.  Automatic inventory audit trail and tracking.  Unlimited inventory items. Bar-code inventory management.

Stock-take

Perform stock-takes any time by category or storage location.  Know how much onion inventory you have in real time, even search by storage location.  Report by product line and storage location, or product category. 

Sales, shipping,  orders

Print pick sheet to pick Garlic orders manually, or scan inventory / pallets onto orders, or auto select inventory,  or rapidly sell without an order.  Track paid, and unpaid invoices.  Attach documents to invoices / photos of outgoing shipments.

Traceability & recalls

Instant mock recalls both up and down the supply chain using keys based on supplier lot/batch, supplier name, delivery date, invoice #, inventory #, pallet #, customer reference, order # and more...  Reduces fresh produce food safety compliance costs and makes audits easy.

Invoices, BOL, labels for pallets & inventory

Choose from a gallery of invoices, bill of lading, freight notes, and industry standard fresh produce labels including Walmart, Tesco, Aldi, Coles, Pick 'n Save, Woolworths and more...

Arie Havelaar and Sander Kleinjan, Sawari Fresh International:
"Great opportunity for innovation in ginger and garlic through focus and specialization"
For the past 18 months Arie Havelaar and Sander Kleinjan have been building an impressive position in the world of garlic and ginger. Having been involved in these two products for most of their working lives, they have a solid grip on all aspects of the supply chain. Arie’s impressive network of contacts is particularly strong in the garlic and ginger regions of China. Sander on the other hand has been focusing on developing the supply base for ginger from Peru, Brazil, South Africa and other emerging ginger-producing countries.


Sander Kleinjan, Bert van Gelder and Arie Havelaar

They established Sawari Fresh International in March 2020. Arie: ‘From day 1 our focus on these two products exclusively has enabled us to take a strong position as ‘seed to table’ supplier. For years the popularity of these culinary products has been rising steadily, mostly due to new consumers’ focus on health and vitality. The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the popularity. We also realized that the market was lacking specialization in keeping up with consumer demands in terms of food safety, quality, taste, and new innovations. The result is that we are creating a niche for Sawari by focussing on the latter – innovation."

Sander believes that this focus on innovation has not gone unnoticed amongst their customers. ‘We were already well-positioned to supply retailers when we started Sawari. However, our combined experience of more than 50 years also enabled us to spot opportunities for innovation. For instance, we invested in state-of-the-art washing, drying, and packing machinery for ginger. This enables us to bring our product in bulk from our growers, and to prepare each retailer’s order on demand. The result is that our retailers receive Sawari’s products directly after the washing and drying process. This guarantees a product with a great quality profile: externally and internally. Our bulk transport from origin is also better in terms of sustainability, as it curbs the forming of mildew (and food waste) due to excessive moisture in cartons’.

Sawari’s interest in growing ginger closer to the market started more than 5 years ago when they initiated a test in Portugal. The results were so promising that almost immediately after starting up Sawari the two partners invested in a project to grow ginger in local greenhouses. The first crop (June to August 2021) proved their belief that growing ginger in Dutch greenhouses would produce a magnificent product with low fiber content and a pure taste. According to Arie they will be rolling out the first field tests in Portugal, Spain and France as soon their first-generation planting material has hardened sufficiently. ‘We are collaborating with Wageningen University, Vertify Research and a world-class laboratory to develop a variety that is perfectly suited to European growing conditions. Our main drive is to create products that have a real added value, including in processed form’ says Arie.

Bert van Gelder, senior account manager says that as the popularity of a product grows the competition heats up. ‘This means that we can never lose our grip and focus on getting (and keeping) the basics right. We start by having direct control over the source of our products. Our way of working enables us to conform to all food safety and social compliance standards. Our supply chain is transparent and efficient due to our close cooperation with growers. Thirdly, we create tailor-made solutions in special packaging, direct shipments and client-specific labelling. Finally, having perfected the art of packing ginger as close as it possibly can to the end consumer in Europe, we supply quality that is consistent and dependable’.

In line with its drive to innovate and to continue improving its environmental (food miles) footprint, Sawari is currently also conducting research and field tests to develop a process through which locally grown (Dutch) garlic can be turned into a dried, retail-ready variant.

Garlic Harvest & Packing
You are currently viewing Garlic Harvest & Packing
Garlic is a staple crop that does not get much credit. People use garlic when cooking at home, either fresh or in seasoning/powder form, but it is also included in dishes when eating out, sauces, salad dressings, seasoning on meats, etc. Garlic is everywhere! However, one thing that we do not think about often, is how garlic is grown, harvested and packed. Without that, there would be no staple crop.

When we used to live in Morgan Hill, we could always smell when it was the peak of garlic season in the nearby town of Gilroy (aka, the Garlic Capital of the World!). It has been a few years, so I was pretty excited when I went to visit Harris Fresh’s garlic operations in Coalinga, CA!

See below for a full step-by-step process of garlic harvesting and packing.

Garlic Harvest
The garlic harvesting process lasts for 2-3 weeks. When the garlic reaches the desired maturity in the field, a tractor goes through and undercuts the garlic. At that time, the workers go through and move four rows of garlic to form one larger row of garlic. The garlic remains in the field in this manner for 2-3 weeks to cure. The garlic is stacked together and mounds are formed along the sides to provide shade during the curing process.

Garlic Field
Garlic - Curing in the Field
Garlic Curing
During the curing process, the garlic dries in the field. After 2-3 weeks, the dryness is measured to determined when the crop is ready to harvest, which includes dry necks and outer skins. At that point, the garlic harvest crew enters the field.

The workers harvest the crop from the ground, while sitting down, and trim the bottom of the garlic using a hand tool and remove the upper portion of the garlic plant, and then place the heads into plastic 5 gallon buckets. Once 2 buckets have been filled, they are taken to the nearby wooden bins and are dumped. They can pass through a filter to remove some of the field debris prior to entering the bin. After dumping, the harvesters get their field tickets stamped.

Garlic Harvest - Cured Garlic in the Field
Garlic Harvest
Garlic Harvest
Garlic Harvest - Dumping into Bins
Garlic Harvest - Harvested Garlic
In this particular case, the garlic harvest workers are working at piece rate. This means that they are compensated based on how many buckets they harvest per day. However, if the workers do not harvest enough to earn minimum wage per hour, they are compensated at the minimum wage rate. This is very rare, and the workers often make significantly more money per day working piece rate compared to an hourly wage.

The harvested bins are then brought to the nearby packinghouse.

Garlic Packing
After harvest, the bins are transported to the packinghouse, where they are further cleaned. This packinghouse does not process the garlic into seasonings or do any of the chopping. However, the garlic destined for processing passes through this step prior to being processed. In a nutshell, the process can be explained as follows:

Bin Dump – The harvested bins are dumped onto the packing line.
Initial Sort – The garlic passes through an initial sorting step. Here, the workers sort out any visible defects (e.g., any that contain mold).
Optical Sorter – The garlic is transported via conveyor line to individual cups, where they then pass through the optical sorter. The optical sorting machine sorts the garlic by size, and then transports the garlic to the specific packing line that is packing that size of garlic.
Packing – Each packing line has a designated size that they are packing. The garlic passes through a brush step as it arrives to the appropriate packing line, where the workers use their hands to remove the outer skin of the garlic prior to packing.
Garlic Packing - Bin Dump
Garlic Packing - Initial Hand Sort
Garlic Harvest - Optical Sorter
Garlic Packing
Garlic Packing - Removing Outer Skin
Garlic Packing - Packed Boxes
Some fun facts:

In this facility, there are large ceiling fans to help with air movement in the facility.
There is no waste. All of the garlic, including the culls, have a place where they can either be sold or donated.
Harris Fresh is a part of the Harris Ranch family. You might know them from the restaurant stop on I-5, or by the meat that is served at Cattlemens restaurants.
 

Recently, garlic prices have been operating in an A-shaped pattern. Generally speaking, the amount of stock in the early stage is sufficient. The new-harvested garlic in storage has not been actively ordered, and the price has risen slightly. In the later period, they were sold more, and prices declined slightly. On the whole, prices were basically stable.

The earlier fresh-keeping garlic mainly focuses on the just-demand market and peeled garlic purchases. The purchasing enthusiasm is average, and the price declines. Due to busy farming and few processing workers, most buyers purchase on demand. The procurement is not active. The volume of garlic in stock is average, and the garlic shoots are entering the market. It is expected that garlic planting will end before Shuangjiang on October 23. Due to the late planting of garlic and the late market entry of garlic shoots, the market volume will increase, and the price of garlic shoots will fall around 2.6-3.0 RMB/kg.

At this stage, some stockholders are active in selling garlic, and some are not. Garlic speculators are less involved in the purchasing stage. As some local farmers have finished garlic planting, the number of workers in the processing plants are sufficient and the purchasing enthusiasm is slightly higher and the overall garlic price is basically stable.

At present, most stockholders sell garlic to cover their costs with a bit of marginal profit. Because of the loss of the positive effects of rain, the stockholders begin to sell actively, and the asking price is stable or a bit lower. However, as the weather improves, this benefit of rain will gradually fade, and some storage companies are again betting on a reduction of the garlic area.

Based on the comprehensive analysis of the above factors, no good news seems likely for the near future. It is predicted that the garlic price in the warehouse will run steadily or even a bit downward, but the decline will not be too large.

"Chinese garlic exports to Brazil declined by almost 90% this year"
In the last few years, garlic has turned into an investment product. The amount of speculation in the garlic market is growing and this season, since the new harvest entered the garlic market, price fluctuations have been small. The balance between supply and demand in the domestic market has been stable. The profit margin is currently very small for traders with stock in storage. The market price of garlic is only marginally higher than the cost price of storage.



The Jining Green Stream Fruit and Vegetables Co., Ltd. is a specialized fruit and vegetable trading company in Shandong, which exports a wide variety of fruit and vegetable products. According to spokesperson Mr. Zhang: "The Chinese garlic harvest was abundant this year, the garlic is rather large and the product quality is quite good. About 20% of the garlic measures 4.5-5.0cm, and roughly 30% of the garlic measures 5.5cm. The remaining 50% is around 6.0cm."

As for exports, the overall volume of Chinese garlic export declined by 20%-30% in comparison with last year. "The export volume of our company declined by more than 30%. The shipping cost is too high and overseas market demand is smaller due to the pandemic. Those are the main reasons for a decline in Chinese garlic export," explained Mr. Zhang. "The FOB price of packaged 5.0# garlic is around 1,000-1,100 yuan [156-171 USD] per ton."



"Southeast Asia is still the largest export market for Chinese garlic. More than 60% of Chinese garlic exports end up in Southeast Asia. The market that shrunk the most this year was Brazil. Chinese garlic export to Brazil declined by more than 90% and the shipping costs for this route have almost doubled. Brazilian importers purchased their garlic in Argentine and Spain instead."



When asked about market prospects in the coming weeks, Mr. Zhang replied, "I expect the price to slightly come down, but not too much. Current market demand is not that strong, and suppliers do not want to lose too much. So there is not much room for the price to drop."


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