Data has great value to those who will benefit from it. DataGranary aims to pay farmers for their data and then collect, clean, aggregate and sell it in a format that is beneficial to retailers and others in the agri-food value chain that want to access it. The early stage start-up is a finalist in Agri-Tech East’s GROW agri-tech business plan competition.
Co-founder Nicholas Wigdahl was previously a supply chain strategy manager with GSK and Chief Operating Officer for a logistics company, and he well understands how data can improve efficiencies, as well as the need for security and confidentiality.
Wigdahl comments: “The agri-food industry is the last to be properly digitised and although there is a lot of data being collected it is difficult for potential users to access.
“Our strategy is to give farmers value for their data – to help them to store farm records in a format where it can be used to provide audit information easily and to benchmark performance against industry data. We will also pay them for supplying data, which we then aggregate and anonymise.”
Oliver Wigdahl, the other co-founder, draws his experience from the aviation and leisure industry, and this includes developing data-driven models to create growth in low-cost airlines.
He comments that knowledge of customer behaviour has transformed the leisure industry.
“The agri-food industry is now all about ‘fast food’ driven by consumer demand. Access to accurate information has a high value.
“We have developed systems for the leisure and aviation industries that use data in innovative ways to create new types of service. We understand how to package aggregated data to feed into these types of system.
“DataGranary will provide a win-win for both suppliers and users of data.”
DataGranary is looking for funding to further develop and pilot the system. The founders have previous experience of successful fundraising and have developed and sold a number of successful businesses.
The GROW agri-tech business plan competition was established by Agri-Tech East to stimulate entrepreneurship in the industry. The 2016/7 challenge was supported by Innovate UK.
Find out more about DataGranary at www.datagranary.co.uk.
