IRVINE, CA - In June of last year, GEM-Pack Berries and Well-Pict Berries forged a new partnership in the berry sector. I wanted to follow up on the move six months in and see how the merger has uplifted GEM-Pack’s overarching strategy.

"Acquiring Well-Pict Berries has given GEM-Pack greater depth and breadth of production,” Michelle Deleissegues, Vice President of Marketing, shared with me. “We’ve been able to not only increase our overall strawberry and raspberry volume, but also dive deeper into the development of proprietary berries. GEM-Pack was already involved in the research and cultivation of some promising strawberry varieties; adding Well-Pict’s decades of experience in proprietary berries gives us greater flexibility as a grower, and even more appeal with our customer base.”

As Michelle mentioned, GEM-Pack’s raspberry and strawberry volumes are made possible due to the significant addition to the grower’s strawberry and raspberry production. Well-Pict also brought with it additional varietal offerings.

“The merger has allowed us to combine GEM-Pack’s gold-standard farming practices, customer service, and logistics with Well-Pict’s berry research and proprietary line of varietals,” Michelle continued. “Adding Well-Pict to the GEM-Pack family gave us immediate acceleration in areas of farming and research that normally take decades to develop.”

And how does this all shake out for the grower’s buy-side partners?

“It’s a win-win for the customer: more volume and deeper product line with the addition of Well-Pict product, but also the enhanced customer service, QC, and Food Safety technology GEM-Pack is known for,” Michelle concluded.

We’ll continue to keep an eye on the moving parts across the industry, so stay tuned to us here at AndNowUKnow.