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FairFruit is a vertically integrated company. It grows, packs, and exports premium fresh vegetables from Peru, Guatemala, Ethiopia and fresh organic mangoes from Burkina Faso, working hand in hand with the farmers and their families in origin. For David Van de Gehuchte, Sales and Operations Manager, that proximity is the whole idea rather than a detail. The company was built around a purpose, and he names it plainly.
"FairFruit is not just a common company. We have a real purpose. We want to bring prosperity to our farmers." David Van de Gehuchte, Sales & Operations Manager, FairFruit
From there the mission is easy to say and hard to do: get the product to the store at the right moment and the right freshness, on honest terms with farmers and retailers. Honest terms with farmers and customers depend on honest, accurate shipment information, and for a long time that visibility was the piece that kept slipping. In FairFruit's Belgian office, Grace is the person who feels that most. As Supply Chain and Logistics Officer she plans the loadings in origin, prepares each container for arrival with the right documentation, and shepherds the produce through to the final customer. It is relentless, dynamic work, done with a team of like-minded people she clearly enjoys. What she did not enjoy was how much of her day used to disappear into simply finding out where shipments were or fire fighting when shipments arrived late.
With their previous logistics provider, the hardest part was never the freight. It was the silence around it.
"I found the communication was the biggest issue. Before, we had to chase the information. That always takes a lot of time. You call, you send emails, you wait on the answers. " Grace, Supply Chain & Logistics Officer, FairFruit Belgium
That waiting cost more than time. When FairFruit could not get a clear answer, it could not give one to its own customers.
"Our customers expect clear information from us. If we can't give it, the image we present is that we don't know what we're doing. And I don't like that."
Tracking only added to the pile: to follow a shipment she took the container number, opened the shipping line's site and looked it up, one container at a time, up to ten of them in peak season. David felt the same drag from the commercial side, forever chasing information by phone and email whenever a customer asked where their goods were.
Then, in 2025, FairFruit moved its first container with Shypple and never looked back. The change was less about any single feature than about where the information now lived. It sat on the platform, in one place, available the moment it was needed instead of whenever someone else happened to reply.
"Now I can check any time I need to. I don't have to rely on someone to give me the answer. If I want to check something at 8:00 in the morning, but my logistics partner hasn't started work yet, that used to be a delay. Not anymore."
For David, the same shift showed up in how easily the team could reassure its own customers. The familiar questions, when will it be delivered, will there be a delay, how do I plan around it, no longer set off a round of calls. The answer was already available on the Shypple platform.
What convinced Grace was not a feature list, but how much quieter her inbox became.
"The moment I realised Shypple was going to be beneficial was when I saw how many emails I was going to save every day. I reckon I save up to ten emails a day. For all the back and forth of organising a delivery, it's a joy not to have to do that."
The reason is simple: the scattered pieces finally sit together. Documents, collection references and collection times are centralised on the platform instead of buried across threads. That order earns its keep most on the difficult days. When a container was held for a customs scan in the port, quick communication with Shypple kept it from becoming a problem, and the delivery was arranged before the weekend, saving FairFruit a detention charge.
Customs is a constant companion for a specialist shipping to both the UK and the EU, and it is not Grace's field, so having Shypple's in-house customs team to ask how a particular shipment should be handled, and get a straight answer back, is in her words a real comfort.
From there the benefits spread outward. FairFruit's own customers now receive shipment information earlier and can plan around it, and the same platform quietly supports one of the company's founding values, with the sustainability team using it to keep a record of CO2 emissions that feeds FairFruit's own policies. Put together, it adds up to something Grace captures in a single word.
"The impact of Shypple on our logistics has been clarity. I know where the information is. I know when it will be there. And I know I can get a quick response if I need one."
