Jersey Post teams up with Wedigital to help export businesses overcome customs hurdles

Jersey Post recently teamed up with local digitally focused creatives Wedigital to help ensure an Island farmers’ potato export business continues to grow.

Richardson’s Jersey Royals are traditionally hand-picked and gently packed in the field and sealed in small paper bags within minutes of being lifted from the ground; but the introduction of new international customs requirements to ship them off island were stunting the company’s growth.

Since April 2022, all companies exporting products have been required to provide Electronic Advance Data (EAD), essentially advance information to the destination country about their shipment.

Richardson’s Royals have become a popular gift to send through the post, but the new customs requirements made the process too time consuming to be profitable for one of Jersey’s oldest farming families, until Wedigital came up with the answer.

The Wedigital team, working closely with Jersey Post developed a tailor-made digital solution which enabled the Richardson’s website to integrate with Jersey Post’s shipping platform, completely automating the administration process and providing the ability to generate all the necessary documentation and shipping labels, whilst complying with the new customs requirements.

Richardson’s can now directly connect their sales channels, so that the whole process can now be fully integrated, removing almost all necessity for human intervention.

This time saving system is now available for roll out across other island businesses to help ease the administrative burden of anyone exporting goods off island.

Annare Dougherty, Key Accounts Executive for Logistics at Jersey Post said, “Wedigital were pioneering in creating a fully automated workflow where such expertise is hard to come by on the island. They worked diligently with our team to deliver a solution we know has delighted our customer.”

Commenting on the success of this solution, Colm Farrington Wedigital MD said, “We’re delighted with this system which really does take the stress out of sending goods off island. We look forward to seeing how it will help other local businesses do the same.”