Technology is increasingly being used in South Africa to facilitate the import and export of perishables.The Perishable Products Export Control Board (PPECB) earlier this year launched a software programme – Titan 2.0 – to ease inspection processing of perishable products.According to Paul Lawrence, managing director South Africa for Tigers Global Logistics, the programme has been operational for a while now and it has improved turnaround times.“There has also been an integration between this programme and the Department of Agriculture’s e-Cert platform. This integration and system upgrades have made it possible to have a much quicker turn-around time in the processing of all documents required for export and import at destination,” he said.And this was good news for the perishable market, said Lawrence.The Department of Agriculture has been developing its e-Cert platform for some time now. The outbreak of Covid-19 forced them to implement e-certification for all products being exported from South Africa. After an initial trial period, full e-certification was, however, suspended. While the submission and application process is electronic, the current solution is more of a blended one, with the phyto certificate still needing to be printed on an official Department of Agriculture blank stock. In another development, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry has also launched an electronic platform for the issuing of Certificates of Origin. These electronic certificates are being accepted by destination countries, except for Japan which still require wet ink certificates.