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Fresh Produce - The Logistics By Alison Inglis Not so long ago fruit came once a month from Montevideo. Stanley's residents queued for those bent black things called bananas and were grateful. One long-time immigrant recalls how she went running to the dock when she was told that the ship was in with fresh fruit, to find that by the time she reached the head of the queue there were only grapefruit left. She bought the lot, even though no-one in her family like grapefruit. Nowadays bananas and grapefruit alike arrive weekly from Chile, but the supply logistics are still far from simple. In the UK well presented produce in Tescos and Sainsburys can be seen seven days a week, but that is in a country of sixty million, part of Europe, with a modern sophisticated integrated air/sea/land delivery service twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and supermarkets and suppliers with large volume turnover to justify nonstop shift working. The Falkland Islands are a small village community in a remote corner of the world with irregular sealinks, no overseas road links and one airlink a week. Fresh produce (fruit and vegetables) are supplied to Stanley's outlets principally by the Market Garden. The largest outlet, the FIC West Store, orders each evening for the next day, Monday to Friday. The Market Garden team starts packing at 7am, aiming to have the products to the West Store by 11am. There the produce has to be checked and bar-coded by the West Store fresh produce supervisor before it is put out onto the retail shelves. This takes time and Monday is the busiest day of the week for all in the supply trade, fresh or tinned, as all the shelves need re-filling at once. First priority is given to the caterers so that consumers can have their lunchtime salad rolls and restaurant meals. Next priority is given to the West Store, as the largest customer, then all the other shops. But sometimes the Market Garden receives a 'no notice' order from a fishing boat. The crew don't have the option of popping down to the shop again for four or five weeks, so there order is sorted out while the rest of the packing waits. On Mondays there may be a quarter of a ton of fresh produce to prepare for the West Store of 25 or so different products. It isn't prepared in advance as supplier, retailer and consumer alike want the product to be freshly packed. So on some Mondays the West Store may not receive their fresh produce until mid-afternoon. That produce arrived Lan Chile on Saturday afternoon, but may already be several days old. Because of passenger levels (airfreight is always second best as passengers pay more) very little produce can be delivered to the airport on Friday evening for the Saturday morning flight south from Santiago to Punta Arenas and on to the Falklands. Only the most perishable items like mushrooms, berries and flowers are privileged to be carried on the Saturday flight south. The rest of the produce has already been flown down to Punta Arenas on earlier flights ready for reloading there for the flight across to Mount Pleasant Airport. According to passenger levels some products may have to be delivered to the agent for the Market Garden on Wednesday for flying to Punta Arenas on Thursday so some less perishable products can be four days old before they arrive in the Falklands, six days old before they reach the West Store. On top of all this, the Market Garden have to monitor passenger loadings on the flight across to the Falklands. They can start the week with plenty of room and a freight allowance of three to three and a half tons, but by Thursday this can be down by 50 per cent or more with extra passengers booking, let alone flights of 100 per cent sell out when the Market Garden will be lucky to receive 250 kilos of fresh produce. They need about 2,500 - 3,000 kilos each week on average. As Tim Miller, owner of the Market Garden, says, "Lan Chile do us very well and I won't mention what can be left off at times so the bananas can get through!" This article is based on information provided by Tim Miller of Stanley's Market Garden in a letter to the Penguin News, published on 27 August 2004
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