LANSA Boosts Returns for Dutch Growers

Veiling Zaltbommel, a fruit, vegetable and mushroom auction cooperative in the Netherlands uses the Internet to make trading between growers and buyers more profitable. Growers have a wide number of services available to them that can be accessed over the Web from their own office or home. One of the services is that growers can enter a prognosis of product deliveries. The prognosis helps Veiling Zaltbommel to timely find additional buyers in case of an expected surplus, and, in case of an expected shortage, to purchase produce from other sources and still meet contractual demands. To make the Internet solution interesting for growers, they provide information. They are offered extra services. It has to work both ways giving general information about quality management, product packaging and other items. LANSA for the Web is used to develop on-line invoices, price information, price comparisons and daily/weekly/quarterly statistics. The growers have access to financial information and can get immediate information on how much their produce is sold for that day. Accounts have also been opened for growers with a service provider specializing on fast access rather than the low-cost and less demanding private Web usage. They offer a very wide bandwidth. Speed is important for the success of the service. The AS/400 system is also connected to the world with a very fast link.