All Delicious Fruits Have a Secret... Lotte Mart Improves Distribution Process

Lotte Mart and Supermarkets Improve Fruit Quality
Adopting Frequently Purchased Fresh Produce, Enhancing Entire Distribution Process

Lotte Mart and Super recently announced on the 15th that the 'Fruit Quality Improvement Project' played a key role in providing fruits that are both delicious and of excellent quality while maintaining uniformity.

This project designates one or two fruit items with high customer purchase frequency every 2 to 4 months and focuses on improving the entire distribution process of those items. Since early last year, Lotte Mart and Super have completed quality improvement work on a total of eight fruit items, including summer representative fruits such as watermelon and chamoe (Korean melon).

A customer is looking at Korean melons in the fruit section of Lotte Mart Seoul Station branch.
[Photo by Lotte Mart].

The core of fruit quality improvement is to ensure that whoever selects any fruit, whenever and wherever, receives fresh and tasty fruit. To achieve this, opinions from all stakeholders related to the product?including merchandisers (MD), logistics personnel, and store agricultural product managers?were gathered, along with customer purchase surveys and customer complaints (VOC), for a comprehensive review. Based on this data, every stage from fruit variety, cultivation, selection, distribution, storage, to display was meticulously analyzed, and optimal improvement measures for each step were derived and applied on-site to enhance the taste and quality of the fruits.

A representative item with completed quality improvement is watermelon. Through 'Farm Cultivation Log Management,' the types of seedlings, planting times, and appropriate harvest times are managed by each farm, planning for about 95% of the total watermelon volume to be high-sugar watermelons with 11 Brix (a unit measuring fruit sweetness) or higher before harvest. Secondary additional selection at the local agricultural product distribution center and random sample sugar content checks at the logistics center were newly established to keep the defective product shipment rate below 0.1%.

The quality of chamoe was also enhanced. Customer surveys revealed that sweetness, aroma, and visual freshness are the primary considerations when selecting chamoe, along with the most preferred size. Both Lotte Mart and Super inspect the entire chamoe volume using non-destructive sugar content sorters and raised the sugar content standard from 11 to 12 Brix. The weight standard was also increased by 10% compared to before, raising the basic quality criteria for chamoe. To satisfy customers’ visual satisfaction, detailed standards for chamoe appearance were established, handling only products with over 90% yellow coloration on the skin and clean surfaces with scratches less than 2 cm. Uniquely among large retailers, they operate the 'Golden Sweetness Chamoe,' which selects only high-sugar fruits with 14 Brix or higher, offering customers a variety of choices.

By introducing individual plastic packaging, the browning phenomenon of individually displayed chamoe, which was previously displayed in bulk without packaging, was improved, thereby enhancing freshness. Additionally, to provide more uniform and high-quality chamoe, AI sorting machines are currently being tested, and next year, 'AI Sorted Chamoe' selected with advanced technology will be introduced.

Not limited to domestic fruits, the quality of imported fruit items was also improved. Lotte Mart mandated that a 'Quality Inspection Certificate' prepared by external experts be submitted for each container of exported oranges. This allows inspection of various items such as freshness, color, hardness, fruit size, and the amount of spoiled fruit before moving from the farm to the port. Experiments on quality changes of oranges during storage and display periods were conducted to calculate the optimal distribution period, shortening the distribution period by five days compared to before, thus offering fresher oranges.

Lotte Mart and Super’s efforts to improve the taste and quality of fruits have led to positive customer responses. Looking at Lotte Mart’s total fruit sales from January to May, there was about a 10% increase compared to the same period last year. Lotte Mart and Super plan to complete quality improvement work on about 10 fruit items this year as well.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.