Global superfruit producer cuts harvest planning time from days to minutes

A leading grower uses SWARM to optimize labor and transportation for up to 15,000 field workers in Latin America, turning a complex weekly planning process into a fast, repeatable workflow.

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CUSTOMER

About the customer

This customer is a global, vertically integrated grower, packer, shipper, and marketer of superfruits. They operate across multiple regions, including Peru, Mexico, Morocco, and the USA, supplying premium blueberries, avocados, asparagus, and table grapes to customers year round from their strategically located growing regions.

INDUSTRY

Agrifood

FOCUS

Fresh superfruits

REGION

Peru, Mexico, Morocco, and the USA

USE CASES

Workforce planning, transportation optimization

CHALLENGE

Coordinating thousands of workers and pickup points

During peak harvest season, the customer relies on up to 15,000 workers in Peru to harvest blueberries. Each week, the planning team has to decide:

  • Which workers to hire and where to deploy them, based on prior performance, forecasted yield, and demand

  • How to move those workers from thousands of pickup points to fields using a mix of SUVs, minibuses, and large coaches

The labor plan and the transportation plan are tightly linked. A change in one affects the other. Before SWARM, building a weekly plan took days of manual work across spreadsheets and disconnected tools.

SOLUTION

AI powered optimization for labor and transportation

The customer uses the SWARM platform to create weekly labor and transportation plans in a single workflow.

1. Ingest data

SWARM connects to data on worker performance, labor availability, forecasted yield, customer demand, and transport capacity.

2. Build the labor plan

The platform recommends which workers to hire and where to assign them each week, taking into account prior performance and expected field needs.

3. Optimize transportation

SWARM then builds a transportation plan that moves workers from thousands of pickup points to field locations using different vehicle types, while minimizing transportation cost and meeting timing constraints.

4. Support weekly decisions

Planners review, adjust, and approve the plan inside SWARM. The optimizations run every week so the team can respond quickly to changes in yield, labor availability, or demand

POWERED BY SWARM ENGINE

SWARM ENGINE is our agentic AI optimization platform that solves complex operational problems such as labor planning, logistics, and allocation.

IMPACT

From days of planning to decisions in minutes

With SWARM in production, the customer now:

  • Generates weekly labor and transportation plans in minutes instead of days

  • Runs two optimizations in production for labor and transport planning

  • Is piloting AVA Enterprise to extend AI support into more day to day operational decisions

  • Has renewed its SWARM engagement for a second year as part of a broader innovation program

Global Superfruit Producer Case Study | SWARM
Case study
Global superfruit producer uses SWARM to optimize harvest labor and transportation.
Workforce and transport optimization

Global superfruit producer cuts harvest planning time from days to minutes

A leading grower uses SWARM to optimize labor and transportation for up to 15,000 field workers in Latin America, turning a complex weekly planning process into a fast, repeatable workflow.

Up to 15,000 seasonal workers
Thousands of pickup points
Minutes to generate weekly plans
Weekly optimization
Labor and transport plan
Harvest week: W32
Pickup points covered 1,842
Workers scheduled 14,960
Vehicles used SUV, minibus, coach
Optimization runtime Under 10 minutes
Customer

About the customer

This customer is a global, vertically integrated grower, packer, shipper, and marketer of superfruits. They operate across multiple regions, including Latin America and North America, and supply premium blueberries, avocados, asparagus, and table grapes to customers year round from their strategically located growing regions.

Industry
Agrifood
Focus
Fresh superfruits
Regions
Latin America and North America
Use cases
Workforce planning, transportation optimization
Challenge

Coordinating thousands of workers and pickup points

During peak harvest season, the customer relies on up to 15,000 workers in Latin America to harvest blueberries. Each week, the planning team has to decide:

  • Which workers to hire and where to deploy them, based on prior performance, forecasted yield, and demand
  • How to move those workers from thousands of pickup points to fields using a mix of SUVs, minibuses, and large coaches

The labor plan and the transportation plan are tightly linked. A change in one affects the other. Before SWARM, building a weekly plan took days of manual work across spreadsheets and disconnected tools.

Planning flow

The customer needed a way to link demand, labor, and transport decisions so that weekly plans are feasible, cost aware, and fast to update.

Forecasted yield and demand
Labor plan
Transportation plan
Solution

AI powered optimization for labor and transportation

The customer uses the SWARM platform to create weekly labor and transportation plans in a single workflow.

1. Ingest data

SWARM connects to data on worker performance, labor availability, forecasted yield, customer demand, and transport capacity.

2. Build the labor plan

The platform recommends which workers to hire and where to assign them each week, taking into account prior performance and expected field needs.

3. Optimize transportation

SWARM then builds a transportation plan that moves workers from thousands of pickup points to field locations using different vehicle types, while minimizing transportation cost and meeting timing constraints.

4. Support weekly decisions

Planners review, adjust, and approve the plan inside SWARM. The optimizations run every week so the team can respond quickly to changes in yield, labor availability, or demand.

Powered by SWARM ENGINE

SWARM ENGINE is our agentic AI optimization platform that solves complex operational problems such as labor planning, logistics, and allocation.

Impact

From days of planning to decisions in minutes

With SWARM in production, the customer now:

  • Generates weekly labor and transportation plans in minutes instead of days
  • Runs two optimizations in production for labor and transport planning
  • Is piloting AVA Enterprise to extend AI support into more day to day operational decisions
  • Has renewed its SWARM engagement for a second year as part of a broader innovation program
Days → Minutes
Weekly planning time
2
Optimizations in production
Year 2
Partnership renewal
We have worked closely with SWARM in optimizing critical functions in our supply chain, beginning with labor and transportation planning for field workers, and this is part of a broader program to drive innovation in our business. The team have been responsive, supportive, and knowledgeable. We recently kicked off the next wave of projects with SWARM, who we now consider to be a strategic partner.
Executive chairman, global superfruit producer
Why SWARM

Why this customer chose SWARM

Operations first approach

SWARM starts from the operational challenge and works back to the data and algorithms, not the other way around.

Fast time to value

The first optimizations went into production quickly and are now part of weekly decision making.

Built for complex agrifood operations

The platform handles real world constraints like worker performance, pickup locations, vehicle types, and cost trade offs.

See what SWARM can do for your operations

Talk with our team about your own labor, transportation, or supply chain planning challenges, and explore how SWARM can help.