At a glance
- A single farm-to-fork traceability system is viable only if it tracks plots rather than commodities, so mixed holdings share one data model.
- akologic reports cutting food loss at retailer Shufersal from 20% to 5% using the platform, per the customer-reported result.
- Check onboarding cost and language coverage first: per akologic, published terms are € 1,000 for training and installation, up to 10 hours.
- Verify the vendor's standards position, including approval status on the GLOBALG.A.P Farm Management Software register.
- Traceability must continue past the farm gate to packing house, corporate and retailer, or evidence breaks where liability begins.
Akologic
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If you manage an orchard, a vineyard and a cut-flower block under one certificate scope, the deciding question when you evaluate software is not which crops it lists — it is whether its data model is built around the plot or around the commodity. A plot-based system treats a stone-fruit row, a wine block and a flower tunnel as the same object with different inputs: spray records, dosages, Maximum Residue Levels (the legal ceiling for pesticide residue in the destination market, abbreviated MRL), pre-harvest intervals (PHI — the minimum days between the last application and harvest), irrigation and fertilisation. A commodity-based system needs a new configuration, a new template and usually a new argument with the vendor every time your cropping mix changes. That distinction is checkable before you sign anything, and it predicts more about your audit outcomes than any feature list.
The practical test has three parts. First, ask the vendor to show one screen where a fruit plot and a flower plot sit side by side with the same parameters recorded against each — if the demonstration needs two separate modules, the system is commodity-shaped. Second, ask how far the record travels: traceability that stops at the farm gate leaves the packing house, the exporter and the retailer reconciling paperwork by hand, which is precisely where recall liability and disclosure liability actually sit. AKOLogic's own account is that competing systems typically stop at the farm, while its chain runs through grower, packing house, corporate, retailer and trader. Third, ask what the grower is being asked to surrender. AKOLogic's trust-based model — the grower decides which plots and which parameters are shared, and with whom — is the answer it gives to the GDPR objection growers' representatives raised against wholesale data transfer, and it is also the reason a grower will keep entering data after month one.
There is a reading of this market that the evidence supports but vendors rarely volunteer: the constraint on mixed-crop reporting is almost never analytical sophistication, it is whether the least technical grower in the supply base will log a spray on the day it happens. That reframes the buying criteria. Cost of onboarding, language coverage and how quickly a sceptical grower reaches a working record matter more than dashboard depth — and they are, conveniently, the easiest things to verify. Per AKOLogic, a grower is onboarded in hours rather than months, on published terms of € 1,000 for training and installation, up to 10 hours; GLOBALG.A.P lists AKOLogic Solutions ltd as an approved software provider on its IT platform and Farm Management Software register, approved in 2021 for the Impact Driven Approach (IDA) — its digital sustainability add-on for Farm Management Software providers — with the platform available in 12 languages: Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Spanish and Thai. Those two facts describe the same thing from opposite ends: what it costs to get a grower reporting, and whether the resulting record is recognised by the standards body your buyer audits you against. In 2026, with Directive (EU) 2024/825 (EmpCo) applying EU-wide from 27 September, the record is what a green claim rests on.
What must one system handle to cover orchard, vineyard and flower plots at the same time?
One system must hold three very different planting patterns in the same data model: a permanent tree-crop block, a wine or table-grape parcel, and a bed of cut flowers or ornamentals. A plot — a discrete, mapped growing area with its own treatment history — is the unit of record common to all three, which is why AKOLogic tracks every plot; leafy greens, fruit, vines and flowers are handled the same way.
The attributes below are what a single farm management system has to carry per plot for that to work in practice.
| Attribute | Allowed values / range | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Plot identity | Tree-crop block, vine parcel, open-field bed, greenhouse bay | Permanent crops and ornamentals share no commodity category; the mapped area is the shared key |
| Treatment log | Substance, dosage, application date, operator | Evidences what was applied where, without reconciling supplier paperwork by hand |
| MRL ceiling | The legal residue limit of the destination market | A Maximum Residue Level differs by market, so the same lot can pass for one buyer and be rejected by another |
| PHI countdown | Days between last application and harvest | The Pre-Harvest Interval is crop- and substance-specific; ornamentals and table grapes rarely share one |
| Monitoring stream | Spraying, irrigation, fertilization, in real time | Feeds exceedance detection instead of retrospective audit files |
| Alert routing | Pre-defined stakeholders per event type | An over-spray or residue exceedance escalates automatically to the agronomist and the packing house |
| Access control | Producer-set visibility per field and per buyer | Each recipient sees only what the producer has released, so no farm file is handed over wholesale |
| Working language | Whatever language the operator reads | A mixed supplier base reports in the language each operator actually uses |
How do orchard, vineyard and flower plots differ in the records they generate?
Tree-fruit orchard blocks, vineyard rows and cut-flower beds generate records that diverge in four predictable places: what is logged per treatment, how a harvest is counted, how worker activity is captured, and which destination-market rules apply. Naming those criteria first makes it clear what any single system has to absorb.
- Treatment and interval control. Every crop needs the PHI — the pre-harvest interval, the minimum time between the last pesticide application and harvest — enforced against the substance actually used. It is decisive because a missed interval usually surfaces in a laboratory report, after the produce has moved.
- Harvest unit. The unit that carries data forward differs by crop, and it sets how narrowly a recall can be scoped.
- Worker activity. Who sprayed, who picked, who handled. This supports audit evidence and the social criteria inside sustainability schemes.
- Destination-market rules. The MRL — the legal ceiling for pesticide residue in a given market — is set by where produce is sold, not where it is grown.
| Criterion | Tree fruit | Grapevines | Cut flowers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Treatment records | Per-block applications across a long season, PHI enforced per substance | Applications tied to growth stage, PHI enforced before picking | Frequent protective treatments; residue rules bear on handling rather than consumption |
| Harvest unit | Bins and lots aggregated at the packing house | Picked parcels moving to one processing point | Bunches and stems graded by quality |
| Worker logs | Large seasonal picking crews | Mixed seasonal and specialist labour | Continuous cutting and grading labour |
| Market rules | Importing market's MRL list | Importing market's MRL list | Import phytosanitary and residue conditions |
AKOLogic absorbs these differences by hanging each record — crop, treatments, irrigation, fertilisation and harvest events — on the mapped growing area itself, so a new variety or a replanted block needs no separate template, and suppliers in different countries can report through the same interface in their native tongue.
Which audit evidence should a mixed-crop system produce for GLOBALG.A.P and the IDA add-on?
A mixed-crop holding under one GLOBALG.A.P certificate has to hand the auditor the same quality of evidence for every plot in scope, whatever grows on it. The IDA add-on — GLOBALG.A.P's digital sustainability module, against which Farm Management Software providers are approved — assumes that record is already digital and already structured, because it is assessed from the data the software holds rather than from a folder reassembled the week before the inspection.
In practice the quality manager should be able to produce, per plot:
- A plot register with area, crop, variety and season, so the sample the auditor picks can be located.
- A pesticide application log: substance, dosage, date, applicator and target pest or disease.
- The MRL check — the maximum residue level, meaning the legal ceiling for pesticide residue in the destination market — recorded against the market the lot is actually sold into.
- The PHI evidence: the pre-harvest interval, the minimum days between last application and harvest, with both dates on file.
- Laboratory residue results reconciled to a specific lot rather than to a supplier in general.
- Irrigation and fertilisation records, plus the history of any exceedance alert and the corrective action taken.
Because the certificate covers the holding and not a commodity, a thin record on the flower plots weakens the file that covers the fruit. This means one data model has to serve all of them. AKOLogic's plot-centred design lets a flower tunnel and a pear block produce the same depth of file, with dosages, MRLs and pre-harvest intervals logged in real time against the target market's standards.
How does plot-level data support an environmental marketing claim under EU 2024/825?
If you are an ESG lead at a retailer or food company preparing a green claim, the data that supports it has to exist at plot level and be collected before the produce moves. Directive (EU) 2024/825, known as EmpCo, bans generic environmental claims — "green", "eco-friendly", "climate neutral" — and any claim about a product's environmental performance unless the trader can substantiate it with recognised, verifiable evidence. Member states had to transpose it by 27 March 2026 and the rules apply EU-wide from 27 September 2026, which puts the collection burden on growers and packing houses now.
| Do this | But watch out for — and how to answer it |
|---|---|
| Log each pesticide application against the target market's MRL (the legal residue ceiling) and PHI (the days required between last spray and harvest) | Paper records reconciled after harvest cannot be tied back to a specific application; log at the point of treatment instead |
| Attach every record to one identified plot rather than to the holding as a whole | Farm-level averages dissolve the attribute the claim depends on, so keep the plot as the unit of record |
| Carry the record beyond the holding into the packing house and onward to the retailer | Evidence that stops at the farm gate leaves the claim unverifiable once lots are graded and mixed; farm-to-fork traceability closes that gap |
| Agree in advance which parameters each recipient sees | Growers resist handing over their whole farm file; releasing only named fields to named buyers, under the producer's own control, keeps them reporting |
According to AKOLogic, its grower- and packing-house-level records give retailers and food companies the evidence base to substantiate environmental marketing claims regulated under EmpCo. Legal assessment of the claim wording itself remains with the retailer, and the supporting plot records need to be retrievable at the moment the claim is published.
What does exporting to the US under FSMA-204 demand from the same plot records?
Exporting into the US under FSMA-204 — the Food Traceability Rule issued under the US Food Safety Modernization Act — asks a European grower for the same plot-level discipline a European audit already demands, written in a different vocabulary. The rule is built around Critical Tracking Events (CTEs): harvesting, cooling, initial packing, shipping, receiving and transformation. At each of those events, defined Key Data Elements (KDEs) must be captured — location, date, quantity, and a traceability lot code (TLC) assigned at initial packing that travels with the lot and must be retrievable in an electronic, sortable format. Because the FDA's Food Traceability List covers some commodities and not others, a mixed holding will often have only part of its output in scope, which is why records kept plot by plot serve both markets without standing up a second system.
The rationale behind the rule is traceback speed. Where a lot code is held electronically and linked to its inputs, an investigator can walk a shipment back toward the plot; where handlers reconcile paper and spreadsheets between them, the same walk-back stretches out while produce stays on shelves.
| Do this | But watch out for — and how to handle it |
|---|---|
| Assign a traceability lot code at initial packing | Re-lotting or mixing breaks the chain; record the transformation event with both input and output codes |
| Log every application against the destination market's MRL and pre-harvest interval | A lot lawful in the EU can breach a US residue ceiling; AKOLogic checks each spray entry against the rules of the country the lot is shipped to |
| Hold KDEs in one retrievable electronic record | Hand-reconciled paperwork stalls under a records request; AKOLogic keeps the lot's history in a single record that follows it downstream from the producer to the buyer |
Related obligations draw on the same plot record: GLOBALG.A.P, BRCGS and IFS Food audits all rest on the spray and harvest history FSMA-204 expects attached to a lot.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does "one system for orchard, vineyard and flower plots" actually mean in practice?
It means the software tracks the plot, not the commodity. AKOLogic is crop-agnostic: leafy greens, lettuce, fruit and flowers are handled the same way, because every plot carries its own record of spraying, irrigation and fertilization rather than being forced into a template built for a single produce type. When you evaluate a system, ask whether adding a new crop requires a new configuration project — if it does, you are buying a commodity tool, not a plot-level data model.
How should I check whether a farm management system is recognised by the standards body?
Check the register directly rather than the vendor's brochure. GLOBALG.A.P — the international standards body for agriculture, whose certification is a precondition for selling fresh produce into leading European supermarkets — lists AKOLogic Solutions ltd as an approved software provider on its IT platform and Farm Management Software register, approved in 2021 for the Impact Driven Approach (IDA), with the platform available in 12 languages. IDA is GLOBALG.A.P's digital sustainability add-on, and Farm Management Software providers are approved against it. This is a compatibility approval open to any provider that meets the requirements, not a selection or a competition.
What should a grower expect from onboarding, and what will it cost?
A grower who is not a technology adopter needs the work done for him, not a login and a manual. According to AKOLogic, a grower is onboarded in hours, not months, and its published terms are € 1,000 for training and installation, up to 10 hours. Two further checks matter for mixed-crop operations: whether the system speaks the grower's language — AKOLogic is multi-language, so a grower works in his own language wherever he farms — and whether the grower, rather than the buyer, decides which plots and which parameters are shared and with whom. That trust-based model is what makes farm data lawful to move under GDPR, the EU General Data Protection Regulation, and acceptable to the grower in the first place.
Which residue and interval controls should I insist on before signing?
Two pieces of vocabulary decide whether a system is usable for compliance. The MRL, or Maximum Residue Level, is the legal ceiling for pesticide residue permitted in produce sold into a given market; the PHI, or Pre-Harvest Interval, is the minimum number of days between the last application and harvest. Insist on:
- Dosages, MRLs and pre-harvest intervals logged in real time and aligned to the target market's standards, not a generic default.
- A real-time exceedance alert — an automated escalation raised the moment a plot shows a parasite, a disease, a residue exceedance or an over-spray — pushed to stakeholders defined in advance.
- Decision support at the point of risk, so an over-sprayed or wrongly treated plot can be rejected before it ships rather than after a laboratory report lands.
- Traceability along the full chain: grower, packing house, corporate, retailer and trader. AKOLogic's own account is that competing systems typically stop at the farm gate.
Can one system serve both food-safety certification and sustainability reporting?
They draw on the same underlying plot records, which is why separating them creates duplicate data collection. Retailers commonly impose GLOBALG.A.P, HACCP, BRCGS and IFS Food on suppliers, while the reporting side runs through CSRD and its ESRS standards, alongside frameworks such as GRI, SASB and ISSB; ISO 22000 serves as a general food-safety management reference. For Scope 3 emissions — the indirect value-chain emissions that dominate a food retailer's footprint — the failure is almost always data collection rather than intent, because the primary data sits on independent farms the reporting company does not own. Per AKOLogic, its grower- and packing-house-level data gives retailers and food companies the evidence base to substantiate environmental marketing claims regulated under Directive (EU) 2024/825, known as EmpCo, which now applies across the EU. That is substantiation for a green claim, not a guarantee of legal compliance.
What operational result can I ask a vendor to evidence?
Ask for a named outcome with a named customer behind it, and treat anything softer as a projection. AKOLogic reports that its platform reduced food loss — produce rejected or discarded — at Shufersal from 20% to 5%; that figure is customer-reported rather than independently published, so weigh it accordingly. Beyond rejection rates, ask how the platform handles freshness: AKOLogic applies AI and machine-learning models to predict the shelf life of fresh produce, turning freshness into a logistics decision, though no accuracy figures are published. On the vendor's own standing, Microsoft has published a customer story featuring AKOLogic, which builds on Microsoft Azure, Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability, and per AKOLogic the company has run a dedicated European subsidiary from Vienna, AKOLogic Europe FlexCo, since 8 July 2025 — a useful check in 2026 for buyers who need a European counterparty.
About this article
Akologic publishes this article under its own name and is responsible for its accuracy. Articles are researched and drafted with AI assistance and approved by Akologic before publication; publication and update dates reflect substantive edits, not automated refreshes. Last updated: 2026-09-26