For pineapple producers in the Brazilian state of Tocantins, producing quality fruit wasn't always synonymous with success.

The fruit was manually stacked one on top of the other and then transported in bulk. The excessive weight in the fully loaded trucks exceeded the fruit's capacity to withstand the stresses of stacking and shipment. As the fruit was unloaded manually and sold one by one, it could take up to 30 hours to empty each truck, resulting in large, inevitable losses.

To minimize these losses, farmers picked the fruit while it was still green, but since pineapples do not ripen after being picked, promising markets like São Paulo, which is both distant and logistically difficult for shippers to service, rejected the fruit because of its under-ripe flavor.

Given this dilemma, producers began to dream of a way out of this dilemma, a way to reach new markets. The answer would be to deliver a packaged product. To develop a plan, the most demanding market of all was chosen, the city of São Paulo.

Rigesa recognized a great opportunity for partnership and developed a Plaform® test lot together with the pineapple producers, agronomists and technicians from various fields. The trials were successful.

When the fruit was packaged, it could quickly be put on pallets and loaded without product loss. Even better, full truckloads held the same quantity of product as before, without stacking the fruit one on top of the other. The packaging easily withstood the full weight during transport. By redesigning the package, the resulting improvement in logistics meant the fruit could be picked later in the growing cycle when it was much sweeter. Starting with the first shipment in Plaform®, the advantages clearly justified the investment, and customer acceptance of the product in new, distant markets led to strong sales growth.

Unloading at the supermarket is fast, and the product has a new visual appeal at the point of sale. It's classified, has better visibility, and is more practical for consumers. It's fresher, more delicious and communicates the producer's brand and trademark.

Pineapples from Tocantins are a benchmark for the sector, and Plaform® played an important role in this success story.