At Driscoll’s, our mission is to continually delight our berry consumers through alignment with our customers and growers. Driscoll’s is the global market leader of fresh strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries, working with over 900 independent growers across twenty-two countries and six continents. Each grower manages their own farming and harvesting operations, and many look to the support of Driscoll’s global research & development for solutions ranging from integrated pest management, agronomic assistance, and emerging technologies.  A thriving grower network is not only core to our mission, but critical to our continued success as a multi-generational family-owned company.

Driscoll’s sees AgTech to be a key in advancing grower viability and enhancing agricultural sustainability.  Consequently, we have initiated AgTech programs aimed at scouting, selecting, trialing, and deploying new technologies, with a particular attention on technology that improves grower profitability. Driscoll’s goal is to deploy effective solutions within our global network of independent growers.

When screening AgTech companies, we not only evaluate their efficacy, but also their impact on grower profitability in the specific crop and region where we want the technology adopted. Our experience has taught us that there are essentially three paths to grower profitability that technology companies can take. Many AgTech companies can claim one. The most successful can claim two. We are wary of any that claims all three.

• Increasing yield
• Improving non-harvest labor efficiency
• Reducing farming costs

The most important criteria for market entry is a startups’ ability to solve real production problems but do so in a way that favors grower economics.

Enhancing Grower Profitability

Boosting Yield: Yield is the biggest driver of grower profitability that is in reach of AgTech. Startups that can substantiate yield claims have the most compelling business cases. Understanding how technology impacts crop yield, describing the physiological mechanisms behind improved yield, and providing solid research to quantify yield gains are essential. At Driscoll’s, when evaluating startups, we prioritize technologies that can demonstrate yield enhancements. Examples of yield-boosting technology that we are excited about include artificial pollination for blueberries and organic-approved nitrate fertilizer.

Improving Labor Efficiency: Harvest labor poses one of the most significant challenges for growers, with issues ranging from labor shortages to harvesting costs and worker ergonomics. Commercially viable harvest automation is a moonshot we are all hoping to see in the fields soon. Non-harvest labor is the second largest opportunity within reach for AgTech to improve grower economics. In berry farms, there is no shortage of labor-intensive activities that must be completed long before the crop is ready for harvest and Driscoll’s is pleased to see more AgTech companies tackle non-harvest labor. Non-harvest labor activities are crop-specific and difficult to identify without deep knowledge of how the crop is farmed. Startups will need to build relationships with the industry to identify labor efficiency opportunities suitable to their technology. AgTech startups focused on labor efficiency in activities like weeding, sucker removal, beneficial insect release, spraying, and pot washing are on the right track to gain momentum in the berry industry.

Reducing Farming Costs: Input reduction, particularly in pesticides and fertilizers, is the third most impactful driver of grower economics that AgTech can address. Technologies that replace these inputs have the potential to improve grower economics and positively impact sustainability. That said, such technologies frequently struggle to show grower profitability because the cost of the technology matches, or more frequently exceeds, the cost of the current-state input. AgTech startups that strictly focus on input reduction will have to work hard to make a strong business case for growers. UV-C light as a replacement for pesticides, sterile insect technique for priority pests, and digitally enabled precision irrigation systems are great examples of effective input replacement technologies that we are excited about.

Conclusion
The global berry industry continues to grow and with this growth comes opportunities for startups. The most successful startups will be those fluent in grower economics and we expect yield-generating technologies to have the easiest road to grower uptake. Non-harvest labor efficiency technologies will make a big impact, but startups need to do their homework and learn the crop-specific problems to be solved. With the costs of farming inputs steadily increasing, input-saving technologies will become more appealing in the immediate and long term as they will be critical for meeting global sustainability targets.

At Driscoll’s, we are set up to support startups who have decided to make our challenges their challenges. We welcome invitations to learn about new technologies and look forward to bringing step-change innovation to our growers.