Cherry-picking Turkish Cargo harvests supply chain time savings

Turkish Cargo will fly 600 tonnes of Salihli cherries (Bing Cherry) to Oslo in 10 dedicated Airbus A330 charter flights for last mile delivery to more than 1,600 stores throughout Norway.
The cherries grow in Turkish cities such as Izmir, Manisa, Isparta, Adana, Konya and Kahramanmaras at elevations between 500 and 2,500 meters.
The cherries are picked upon ripening, and sorted according to size, assortment and quality. The cherries, loaded into the air-conditioned vehicles in the form of pallets of five kg each, are brought to the Istanbul Ataturk Airport, the operations hub of Turkish Cargo.  
While all of the loading, transportation and unloading operations for the cherries are accomplished in a period shorter than six hours, the flight to Norway takes about three hours.
Veysel Tuysuz, a Turkish cherry export merchant, said: “The most delicious cherries in the world are grown in our lands, and we convey such value of us beyond the borders by Turkish Cargo. In the past, our trucks, carrying our cherries to Norway, would arrive at the region in six days.
“Our cherries would become deprived of their quality and become rotten due to the prolonged shipment time. But now, we have that period reduced to six hours, and all of our products are sold in the shelves in Norway within six days. 
“On year-on-year basis, we have not only increased our exportation by 30%, but also received demands from eight new countries. The speed and capacity advantage offered by Turkish Cargo is a great opportunity for us, the exporters.”
The cherry harvest period lasts between 20-30 days in many countries and continues for three months (June, July, and August) in Turkey. 
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