Eliminating food waste through predictable commerce.
Fresh produce is the most volatile industry in the world.
A single shipment of produce will typically travel 1,600 miles, and will be handled by four to eight intermediaries. Along the way, factors such as unpredictable weather, fluctuating markets, crop disease and pests create a constant state of instability that wreaks havoc across the supply chain. This volatility and unpredictability, coupled with the fragmented, speculative nature of the supply chain, result in enormous inefficiencies and wasteful practices.
At the same time, we have a growing global population who want access to high quality, sustainable produce 365 days a year. The inspiring businesses throughout the fresh produce industry are challenged to navigate these two competing forces every single day.
At ProducePay, we envision a world that feeds itself sustainably. Central to this is our mission to transform the agricultural industry by eliminating the economic and food waste rampant in today’s volatile, opaque, and fragmented supply chain.
How do we aim to create this better world? By making commerce more predictable for growers, marketers and retailers.
Our Predictable Commerce Platform gives growers and buyers unprecedented control and insight into their operations. We foster greater access between the two parties, provide crucial capital, trading opportunities, and deep insights – all while enhancing supply chain visibility.
Exhibit A: Our new partnership with Four Star Fruit, one of the world’s most significant table grape growers and shippers. Together, we have launched an industry-first direct-to-retail procurement partnership.
The model we first pioneered with Four Star presents a concrete solution to current volatile and wasteful supply chain practices. We aim to create stability for both retailers and growers – retailers are assured quality produce at stable prices throughout the year, and growers enjoy certainty of demand and income. All while placing value-add marketers at the center of a more efficient and stable global supply chain.
This approach better connects the grower and the retailer, removing unnecessary intermediaries, while significantly reducing food, economic waste, and carbon emissions. What’s more, this partnership brings transparency to the supply chain, providing a clear, efficient pathway from grower to consumer. And armed with real-time data and insights, both growers and retailers can make business decisions that are not just profitable but also sustainable.
While we’re only in the initial stages of the partnership, results are very promising.Throughout the Mexican table grape season, our direct-to-retail model drove the following results:
- Time spent in transit was reduced by 31%.
- Number of stops in the delivery process reduced by 50%.
- Volume rejection upon retail arrival was reduced by 80%, to less than 1%.
- Cold storage days cut by 41%.
All of these improvements collectively resulted in a reduction of nearly 75,000 tons of food waste, as well as 1.7 tons of CO2e per ton of food waste avoided.
Our collaboration with Four Star Fruit isn’t just a testament to our vision; it’s living proof of the efficacy of our Predictable Commerce Platform. It’s a collaboration that offers a glimpse into the future, where supply and pricing assurances for retailers exist, growers are guaranteed long-term financial sustainability, and economic and food waste is dramatically reduced.
We’re not just about one commodity, though. Four Star Fruit serves as an example, showcasing the transformative power of a connected, transparent supply chain. By proving this model’s effectiveness, we aim to catalyze a paradigm shift, enabling other fresh produce commodities to thrive in a direct-to-retail procurement model.
The potential to bring about sweeping changes across the entire produce industry, impacting millions of lives, is immense.
It’s an honor for us to move the world toward a future where growers prosper, value-add marketers thrive, retailers enjoy reliable produce sources, and families enjoy nutritious and sustainable fresh produce 365 days a year.
Here’s to a world that grows better. ProducePay. There’s a better way to grow.
An esteemed global business leader, ProducePay CEO, Patrick McCullough, brings to his role more than 25 years of corporate experience and deep expertise in international business development, structuring and joint ventures from leadership positions held at startups and Fortune 500 companies such as Ford Motor Company, Berkshire Hathaway and Just Energy. Prior to becoming CEO at ProducePay, he was a board member for two years, playing a vital role in ProducePay’s capital raising and more than quadrupling the platform’s gross merchandise value to almost $4 billion during that period.