Recently, a drought was reported in California followed by the same situation in India too, resulting in a major loss in crop yield. This indicated the lack of automation and access to data insights in the food and Ag ecosystem. Automation has proved its dominance over several industries but it has failed to reach the food and Ag ecosystem. Besides, not many entrepreneurs have tried to change the equation and break the silos. Different from such leaders is Miku Jha (CEO and Founder at AgShift), who did not overlook the huge gap between automation and the food industry.
Personally belonging to a farmer family she has gained her insights on the issues one faces. Thus she was determined to change this scenario and help big data and auto tech reach the food and Ag industry. In 2016, Miku led the IoT initiative where she mentored many startups on sensor, drone, and data-related technologies for large farms and the Ag ecosystem. It was then that she realized that technology benefits from data, insights, and automation of repetitive tasks, which was easily accessible and deployed in other verticals were not derived or realized by the food and Ag network. Miku was confident that there can be an evolution of operational efficiencies in the food ecosystem through technology-enabled automation.
“I was convinced that even a slight improvement in automation and data insights, could deliver massive benefits to the food supply chain. With this conviction, I left IBM and founded AgShift.”
Novel Turn-Key Solution
AgShift is one of the most innovative AI companies- solving complex challenges in the food supply chain and playing a role in significantly reducing food waste. Being one of the leading AI automation platforms, its unique business value, data repository, and AI technology differentiates it from its competitors. AgShift is the only turn-key solution for the food supply chain organization and the world’s first “Quality-management-system-in-a-box” solution for industrial automation of quality assessment. This solution dynamically configures the quality acceptance criteria as per the business metric.
Integrating AgShift’s solution in the organizations can augment the quality metrics and significantly increase the sample size, and can yield better products for a higher margin. “Businesses can do better, faster, and more objective quality assessments on increased samples with higher throughput and digitized audit trail,” said Miku. Another USP of the AgShift solution is the unique data repository. Its problem statement is similar to clinical AI (Healthcare, Medical Imaging). Attaining accurate food quality data is tough for food organizations as they lack a repository for quality data. Besides, no open-source data or standardization is available in the industry as it applies to food quality data. AgShift is the only organization to have clean, curated, annotated data sets across several high values, high margin commodities.
Tackling the challenges of COVID
Being the only organization with unadulterated and curated data sets, it still was not guarded for the impact of the crisis on its solutions. As a preventive measure against COVID, there was a lockdown announced in several parts of the world. Following this, the COVID-19 crisis has also raised uncertainty in the current market condition affecting many of its customers. Miku asserted that in the short term this situation will significantly impact the projects and plans lined up for the upcoming seasons.
“Given the current projections of COVID-19 in the fall – this will impact our production deployments in the fall,” said Miku.
Furthermore, AgShift is also dealing with the challenge of meeting the financial ability to support industrial-scale production deployment for some of the world’s largest enterprise customers. As a CEO and founder, Miku is supervising several roles and outlining strategic direction to tackle the challenges in these tough times. Apart from the market challenges, another important challenge is keeping the team focused and motivated.
The uncertainties and pandemic impact is bound to affect mental health. Due to social distancing and lockdown measures, several aspects of communication are redesigned. However, Miku being a virtuous leader communicates frequently with everyone in the team. She tries to keep every process co-ordinated in terms of conquests. Acknowledging these conquests—either small or big—boosts the morale of the team members and keep them motivated.
Crisis creates Opportunities
In the current COVID-19 crisis Miku has managed to find a silver lining. Due to organizations operating at 25% of their labor capacity, there are not enough manual workforces for quality inspections. This lack of labor is contributing to food waste across the supply chain. Organizations also have to reduce the number of samples inspected to fulfill the need for food in the current crisis which is creating immense pressure across the supply chain with suboptimal quality. Consequently, the customers have shifted to automation and digitization for quality assessment processes.
Integrating automation in the food supply chain will augment the current manual processes to mitigate the projected future impact of the COVID-19 crisis. This pandemic has created a sense of urgency across AgShift’s customer base to invest in technology and automation to be prepared for the future. Organizations are now accelerating the adoption of technology in the food supply chain which has also surged the demand for AgShift solutions.
Automation in Food Assessment
AgShift currently offers food quality inspection across two categories— fresh produce and edible nuts. Miku is looking forward to expanding the automation services and included several commodities like Baby carrots, Raspberries, Blackberries, and other high-value commodities, to AgShift’s portfolio.
Miku incepted the journey of AgShift as an initiative to revolutionize the food supply chain. Although the change was slow, the pandemic has fast-forwarded the adoption of automation. Miku further added, “A message to all decision-makers in the food supply chain – now is the time to invest in automation, invest in technology and to help young startups do, what they do best – innovate and disrupt. Strategic collaboration and support from early adopters of technology in the food supply chain can fuel rapid automation and operational efficiencies across the supply chain.”
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