Andrew Barclay, focused on a full range of innovative post-harvest vegetable solutions

Wyma Solutions is a global leader in the post-harvest industry. Its focus on customer outcomes and quality has driven its growth, leading it to becoming one of the most innovative and agile companies in the post-harvest sector. Originally founded as an engineering workshop, in the early 1960’s, Wyma is almost unrecognisable from its rural origins in Canterbury, New Zealand. Support for its global customer base is now provided by significant operations in New Zealand, Europe and the United Kingdom, with North America customer support served through a strategic partner. Wyma produces a full range of innovative post-harvest vegetable solutions suitable for any pack-house in the world, with its product portfolio extending also into the fruit market in Australasia. Wyma’s world-leading range of Vege-Polishers™ transformed the quality, yield and presentation of root vegetables when developed in the 1990s, and still lead this category today. However, it’s now the company’s reputation for complete post-harvest line supply, innovation and integration that sets it apart. In the past few years, Wyma has successfully completed numerous projects – large and small – for potato, carrot and onion customers globally, as well as customers processing other fruit and vegetable crops. Andrew Barclay, the Wyma Managing Director who has owned the company since 2001, has been heavily involved with all facets of the business. With extensive global experience in the sector, Andrew has developed a strong understanding of the industry and built relationships with customers and partners all over the world. We spoke with Andrew about Wyma’s history, their equipment, and his opinions about how the industry is evolving. How has the post-harvest industry changed in your time with Wyma, and how has the company evolved to meet these changes? There have been several significant drivers of post-harvest industry change in my time at Wyma. Consolidation of the industry has driven the need for larger packing facilities with higher-throughput equipment and lower operating costs. Consumer demand for safe, sustainable and ready-to-consume food has driven changes in grading technology, packaging, and equipment to improve appearance, minimise damage and preserve freshness. Environmental considerations increase the focus on waste water, energy consumption and packaging formats. Equipment has to adapt to ensure it adds value to customers. Our staff have to be close to our customers to fully understand the pressures they are under. Product development, research and testing new ideas is an ongoing part of Wyma’s culture to ensure we stay relevant in this changing world. How has Wyma kept such a prominent position in the industry given its location far from many of the key markets? Our distance from our key markets is a common misconception when it comes to Wyma. We are much more local than many customers appreciate, and this is a critical part of Wyma retaining our prominent position. To effectively service and support our customers we must be local, and as such we have developed businesses and/or sales and service offices in Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia. In North America we work very closely with a large strategic partner to satisfy our customers’ needs. Our staff globally are well connected to their local customer base with excellent understanding of the local market needs, which is key to being relevant. To increase our speed to market, we manufacture in several locations including Europe, the United Kingdom and North America. Our customers have the benefit of a global supply chain, local service/parts supply and, importantly, 24/7 support (given our multiple locations). We don’t just view ourselves as a global company – we are one! Wyma equipment has been installed at large companies with very high production, but Wyma also offers solutions for smaller scale farmers. How does the company bridge these two very different markets? Before high-production farming, there were almost exclusively family farms in our sector with strong family values. Companies that have grown into high-production enterprises mostly retain these family values despite their growth in size, and Wyma’s own company values strongly reflect that of our customers. We find that, irrespective of company size, most customers are looking for similar outcomes. Quality products, innovation, lower operating costs, improvement in their own brand recognition and company performance. Our goal is to try to develop partnerships with our customers, and support them to meet their goals. With shared company values this goal is much easier. What have been the biggest trends in equipment development you have seen in your time in the industry? What do you think will be the most impactful future trends? Predicting future trends is of course never easy. I personally think we might see a growing number of smaller, local, regionalised packing facilities, meeting the growing demand of local, sustainable, low carbon footprint consumers. Otherwise continued development in reducing operating costs and in particular the cost of packing house labour. Vision grading, automated warehousing, robotics, AGVs -Automatic Guided Vehicle- will continue to grow as their cost reduces, and the produce-specific washing, grading and handling equipment solutions will move to being fully automated, virtually unmanned production facilities. Hygiene standards are likely to improve as well. Standards for hygiene in our industry are rightly lower than more processed food sectors, but hygienic equipment demand is also low, driven in part by perception of cost. The consequence is that managing packing facility hygiene is still quite manual. Equipment and packing facilities designed for hygiene with automated cleaning are not as expensive, over the longer term, as many would think. Capturing data to improve processes and equipment is a huge focal point in recent years. Is this something Wyma is exploring for future equipment and service development? Wyma has recently gone live with machine data capture, allowing customers to access a portal and see live and historical data. Customers can use the data to provide early warnings of machines operating outside the normal parameters, optimize machine performance, see uptime and the like. Output can be customized for customers as required, and Wyma can use the data for understanding better the conditions the machines work under and improve and develop technology accordingly. Wyma has invested heavily in automation, control and monitoring systems. We recognise this need as facilities become more and more sophisticated. Technology has also played its part and reduced communication and component costs to the point where data capture is very viable even for single machines, should customers see benefit in getting access to machine statistics.