EDI in the fresh produce supply chain

While fruit and vegetables are precious commodities, they are also highly perishable and sensitive to transport. Read on to learn how Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) speeds up the process and ensures fresh produce reaches supermarket shelves right on time.

A lot of work — and nutrients — go into our fruits and vegetables. To get roughly 140,000 tons of apples and 1.1 million tons of vegetables from farms to supermarket shelves each year, many experts along the supply chain play a crucial role. After the harvest, farmers sort the produce before transport companies deliver it to wholesalers and, later, to individual stores. It’s a complex process and a race against time. Because fresh produce spoils easily and must be handled with care, success depends on one key factor: fast, reliable Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) between all partners in the supply chain.

Supply chain digitalization: not just for the big players

In the past, procurement involved endless paper documents — delivery slips, invoices, and order forms. Today, a successful procurement process is fully digital, standardized, automated, and real-time. As order volumes grow, manual processing would overwhelm staff capacity or cause significant cost increases. That’s why it’s essential, even for small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs), to analyze their logistics workflows and embrace process digitalization. The benefits go far beyond saving time and paper: digital order and delivery data are easier to manage, less error-prone, and far more transparent.

Web EDI or integrated solution?

Whether a company already uses EDI or not, EDITEL, the expert in Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), provides customized solutions for every need in the fruit and vegetable industry. For smaller businesses without an ERP system, a Web EDI solution is an ideal entry point. No installation is required — users simply log in through a web browser. This allows producers and suppliers to exchange electronic orders, delivery notes, and invoices with trading partners easily and cost-effectively, managing the entire order-to-cash process digitally and in a user-friendly way while meeting the technical requirements of major retail chains.

Bringing smaller producers into the digital supply chain

Web EDI solutions are often provided in collaboration with large retail chains such as SPAR, REWE, or METRO, helping integrate suppliers into the digital procurement process. These retailers offer supplier portals directly connected to their ERP systems, enabling a fully automated procurement workflow. Orders are sent automatically to suppliers and converted into a readable format. All subsequent documents — from order confirmations to invoices — are automatically matched with the order data in the background and imported directly into the retailer’s system. The result: a fast, secure, and fully digital procurement process.

Upgrading to an integrated solution

Dorfinger, Lower Austria’s largest producer of potatoes, onions, and garlic and a supplier to all major retail chains, used a Web EDI solution for years. As the company expanded and implemented its own ERP system, Dorfinger decided to take the next step: from Web EDI to a fully integrated solution. The new system, developed jointly by activeIT and EDITEL, seamlessly integrates EDI into the ERP environment and ensures smooth, efficient processes, even as document volumes increase.

A similar success story can be found at Zeiler, a tomato producer from Lower Austria best known for its cherry tomato “Fruchtige Frieda,” which now reaches supermarket shelves in record time. Within just one month, EDITEL and activeIT integrated EDI into Zeiler’s existing ERP system and connected it directly to retail partner HOFER KG. The family-run horticultural business had grown into an international vegetable producer with sites in Austria and Hungary. Thanks to modernization, all business communication with HOFER, from orders and delivery data to invoicing, is now handled entirely via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).

A data hub linking producers and retailers

To keep central warehouses in the grocery sector stocked with fruit, vegetables, canned goods, and other products, manufacturers must exchange business documents quickly and continuously with their trading partners. This Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) runs via EDITEL’s central EDI platform, eXite®, which connects many of Europe’s leading retail groups.The platform ensures fast, secure, and standardized communication along the supply chain. With decades of experience, EDITEL knows the retail sector’s technical requirements inside out and understands exactly how these processes work.

Time really is money here: the logistics window for fresh produce deliveries is often less than 24 hours. But with the right EDI solutions, digital supply chain management is achievable for companies of all sizes. This allows local producers to position themselves for the future, ensuring that fresh, valuable produce continues to reach supermarkets by the fastest route possible.