Joinfruit is an Organization of Fruit and Vegetable Producers based in Verzuolo, in the province of Cuneo: it is composed by 190 members daily committed to offer quality fruit in respect of territory, health and wellbeing of people.

Among Joinfruit objectives there is the enhancement of local and, more generally, Italian excellent products, in the perspective of a sustainability oriented to the well-being of the whole supply chain, from the farmer to the consumer.

To do so, the organization thought to offer consumers an alternative channel to buy its products, shortening the supply chain and creating a direct link between producers and consumers through the Joinfruit Fresh project, co-financed by the European Union.

Food Lockers for Click & Collect turned out to be the perfect solution for Joinfruit Fresh, as they allow to assure consumers a fresh, good, safe and monitored Italian product all along its path: from the field to the warehouse, up to the Smart Locker.

In cooperation with our partner Ricoh, we have therefore installed a Food Locker in Cuneo, thanks to which people can enjoy a very fresh product, prepared and delivered in one day, creating a marketing channel able to combine new sales models and attention to sustainability.

“In a world that moves faster and faster, we wanted to offer people an innovative shopping experience” explains Bruno Sacchi, Joinfruit Director.

“Our intention is not to upset the habits of those who are used to going to the market or supermarket, but rather to offer an alternative to those who are ready to take the opportunity to buy, when it is more convenient for them, a good, fresh and safe product, which has been prepared especially for them by ensuring a very short supply chain, in which the product, strictly packed in recyclable packaging, arrives at the Smart Locker directly from the warehouse, without intermediate steps“.

“WIB and Ricoh – continues Bruno Sacchi – have provided us with a complete and customized solution based on our needs and the goals we wanted to achieve“.

The fruit to be received and picked up at Joinfruit Smart Locker is ordered on Joinfruit Fresh website, also choosing the delivery date. Paying is really easy, thanks to the integration of both traditional credit card circuits (Mastercard and Visa) and the innovative system offered by Satispay, more and more widespread in Italy.

The order placed arrives at the warehouse and from here the fruit is taken directly to the Locker; all notifications to the end user are managed and sent by the webapp thanks to the collaboration with our partner Monforte who developed the dedicated platform.

Once the products have been placed inside the refrigerated cell of the Smart Locker, the recipient receives an alert with a QR code that allows to open the compartment in the next 24 hours.

“We are very happy with this Locker” adds Bruno Sacchi “everything is working as expected and we know we can count on WIB not only for its maintenance or eventual technical assistance, but also to improve the shopping experience over time; given the excellent premises of this first installation, we are already thinking of replicating it in other cities and at the same time expand the offer: vegetables, fruit juices, dehydrated fruit snacks, compotes, etc.“

The solutions that integrate a Food Lockers are, in fact, easily replicable to the advantage of a capillarity of the offer that allows this Click & Collect solution to be brought closer to more and more people: from large urban areas to less densely populated ones, the possibility of picking up what has been ordered at any time of the day is a great convenience for people (who are thus not forced to wait for the courier at home or in the office) and the possibility of making all deliveries at precise points in the city reduces delivery times and costs, a saving that is shared with customers.

Food Lockers, also thanks to innovative realities such as JoinFruit (JoinFruit Fresh envisages a sales model never before experimented in Italy by any Fruit and Vegetable Producers’ Organization), will be more and more part of our daily life; for the moment, if you are in Cuneo, we invite you to try this experience, which we relaunch taking up the slogan proposed for the initiative: #jointhefreshness!