Decco Expands Rollout of Nexy for Better Organic Fruit Storage

rganic industry, what we’re really focusing on is in the apple and pear sectors, and we’ve come up with a product called Nexy,” said Tim Madden, sales manager, US and Canada, for Decco. “It’s a bio-control that we’ve worked on for the last three years that basically allows growers to store apples and put off some of the losses due to decay.”

Tim Madden, Sales Manager US and Canada, Decco Worldwide

The company also has a line of cleaners and coatings in its portfolio behind Nexy.

“All of our products are OMRI certified,” Madden said. “We’ve always had line chemistries for packing the fruit. We’ve had some cleaners and coatings available, but the real value we’ve brought to the growers has been being able to add packout. The key words in the industry now are ‘reduced waste.’ Our new products allow more of the fruit to be packaged and moved all the way along to retail.”

Nexy was first introduced to the Northwest apple and pear industry last season. The intial customers were existing apple, pear, and cherry packers Decco already serviced. This soft launch was done for apples and pears in both a storage capacity and line applications during packing. The latter has shown to have some results on fruit that remained in a packed box for an extended time.

“We’ve had some cleaners and coatings available, but the real value we’ve brought to the growers has been being able to add packout.” -Tim Madden

Historically, packinghouse managers of organic apples have seen losses on some varieties as high as 15 to 35 percent due to decay during storage and through shipment to retail. With the introduction of Nexy, losses have dropped significantly, increasing the packout of high-value organic fruit.

“Now that we’re seeing some great results, we’re planning on expanding our offering in the industry for the new apple season,” Madden said. “Our goal is to grow this product about 150 percent in volume this year. That would bring us somewhat north of 200,000-plus bins in our first full year of commercial launch.”

With the introduction of Nexy, product losses have dropped significantly.

With the addition of Nexy, Decco can now offer a more complete product package to its customers.

“Before, packers may have purchased a few of our organic line chemistries, but now we can bundle things up and provide coverage from the time in storage all the way until the time it’s packed,” Madden said. “The growth we expect to see in organics is going to come on the back side of the storage products.”

Decco also recently partnered with Agrauxine to distribute Nexy biofungicide in select countries for control of key plant pathogens in pome fruit (apples and pears), citrus (lemons, oranges, mandarins, and grapefruit), and bananas.

“Before, packers may have purchased a few of our organic line chemistries, but now we can bundle things up and provide coverage from the time in storage all the way until the time it’s packed.” -Tim Madden

Although Decco is using Nexy right now in the pome arena of apples and pears in the Northwest region, the company is hoping to expand the product in other areas.

“A lot of organics in the rest of the country aren’t stored very long,” Madden said. “These organic offerings are allowing people to store product a month or two longer than they originally did, so they can capture market windows that they couldn’t have before.”

That means product that would've previously lost worthiness in March can now stay viable until April or May thanks to the Nexy product.

“It’s really a matter of showing the growers the value, and we believe we’ll be able to do that and increase our [market] share,” Madden said. “The organic industry keeps gaining volume because there are more people growing organically now, and the crops are just bigger. That’s driving the amount of organic fruit volume every year.”