Baltic Champs – growing with robots and EDI

Word “champs” probably associates with sports. But no, this blog is not about athletic champions, it is about leaders in a completely different field. UAB “Baltic Champs” is the largest company in the Baltic States growing mushrooms. It trades with more than 100 partners, delivering goods to more than 200 destinations.

The company is committed to technology and innovation at every stage of their operations. For production, they are developing an artificial intelligence-based robot technology for mushroom growing. The goal is to reduce the risks and duration of the technological process and increase the productivity of mushroom growing and the quality of the mushrooms themselves (read more).

Since 2013, Baltic Champs has also been using Telema’s EDI services. Today, they are exchanging EDI documents with 10 biggest retail companies like Maxima, Rimi, Palink, Rivona, Sanitex and others. Monthly, over 500 invoices are sent as e-documents via Telema network.

Head of Finance at Baltic Champs Daiva Norvilaitė shares her insights: “EDI solution saves a lot of valuable employees’ time. We no longer scan signed invoices to send them to the customers by email. Instead, e-invoices flow from our ERP Rivilė via a secure EDI channel to our customers with just one click. A convenient function in Rivilė is the confirmation that the sent invoice has reached Telema network. This notification allows us to avoid disputes with the customers about not sent documents.” 

When asked about future plans, Daiva continues: “In 2021, our plan is to expand Telema EDI usage by implementing the receiving of EDI orders. As this will mean no manual entry of data and less errors, we expect even more time savings. And as everybody knows, time is money, so it means we will be able to optimize our costs.”

Baltic Champs started mushroom growing business in 1994. In twenty-five years the company has grown to 550 employees and become one of the largest suppliers of cultivated mushrooms in Europe. They are selling their products not only to the Baltic retailers but also to the major international retail chains such as ICA, Axfood, and Coop. Company’s turnover in 2020 was 34,7 million euros.