Knowing more about a family meal

A holiday dinner at home starts with picking out wholesome dishes. This past Thanksgiving in the U.S., families were offered a new way to learn about how their food was produced, thanks to blockchain technology. In select markets, they could trace their fresh Honeysuckle White® turkey back to the family farmer who raised it. 

Underpinning the pilot was a secure blockchain solution from Cargill that tracked and recorded supply chain data to help consumers learn about the turkey they purchased.

After entering an on-package code via text or at Honeysucklewhite.com, they could view photos of the family-owned farm and read a message from the farmer who raised their bird. This farm-to-table connection is building consumers’ confidence about where their food comes from, while giving farmers an opportunity to share their story.

Farmer Darrell Glaser said, “Everyone deserves to know more about the food they’re eating, and I like feeling more connected to the people I’m raising these turkeys for. It’s important for me that consumers understand the care my family puts in every day to provide quality turkeys for families across the country.”

With an enthusiastic response from consumers, support from farmers and strong interest from retail partners, Cargill plans to expand the program this coming year. Meanwhile, insights from the project will spur more blockchain solutions from Cargill, in order to increase traceability and trust from one end of agricultural supply chains to the other.

Technology with a purpose

Startups are seeking breakthroughs to revolutionize how we make food. This year, we joined with several to combine our expertise and bring new ideas to scale.

Machine learning from satellite imagery

Descartes Labs specializes in machine learning and refining large data sets from sources like satellite imagery. Our partnership with the company helps us analyze huge quantities of data to better forecast crop production both globally and locally. We take the resulting insights to our farmer customers so they can make planting and crop marketing decisions with greater confidence.

Facial recognition for animals

Cainthus is an Irish firm specializing in facial and movement recognition, with an artificial intelligence platform that identifies individual dairy cows and then employs algorithms to predict health, well-being and performance based on an animal’s behavior. We invested to bring the Cainthus platform to the farmers who raise tens of millions of dairy cows worldwide to help them optimize their operations and earn more per animal. We are currently looking to expand the platform to other species.

Cultured meat

Some ventures are aimed further out on the horizon. Memphis Meats is a California-based company seeking to commercialize cultured meat grown directly in a lab. This year, we were an early investor in Memphis Meats to spur new types of alternative proteins. This doesn’t mean we are moving away from traditional meat. Instead, with global protein demand rising quickly, it’s a nod to the fact that we will need all types of solutions tomorrow.

Boosting startups

More answers are waiting to be discovered. To expand innovation within food and agriculture, we joined with Techstars, a top global technology accelerator, and Ecolab, a global leader in water, hygiene and energy technologies and services. Our Farm to Fork Accelerator will work with promising startups to share expertise and other resources, including a 13-week program to support the development of new products and business models that will culminate in a showcase for investors.