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Thoughts for food2018
Welcome to Thoughts for food 2018
Dear Readers,
Welcome to the 2018 edition of our ‘Thoughts for Food’
magazine.
As we reflect on 2017, I think many would agree that it was
a challenging year for the food and farming industry. Brexit
continues to cast a shadow of uncertainty over our industry,
impacting exchange rates and putting inflationary pressure
on imported goods. With the prospect of continued tight
margins in 2018, this for most will mean that the use of data
and analytics to scrutinise costs and inform decision making
in an effort to squeeze out more efficiencies will become ever
more important.
It’s a good job then that we have set ourselves a goal to
deliver what we termed ‘WOW’ reporting by the end of the
year, and invested in new technology tools during 2017.
The first of these advanced analytics tools called ‘Insights’
has recently been released within the Greenlight Quality
Control platform, with the rest of the Greenlight applications
benefitting in 2018. This tool will give our customers improved
access to the wealth of data that is being generated through
their applications and will support and inform their decision
making. The future around using analytics to machine learn
so that your applications become predictive, is next on our
horizon.
Whilst we discuss investment initiatives, let’s also touch on
‘business application mobility’ which is a current buzz word
in the industry. Mobile platform independence has been
one of our goals for a while but is expensive to achieve and
maintain. However, new technologies are allowing our software
engineers to develop in a single code base that will deliver
cross platform mobility within our Greenlight applications.
The tough decisions about which mobile platform to develop
in have now been significantly reduced.
However, it’s the global nature and extensive reach of supply
chains within our industry that probably presents Muddy
Boots with its greatest challenge. Diverse local market
requirements, legislative landscapes, and new innovative
specialist technologies means that to be successful,
collaboration is key. We will be announcing new initiatives
within our farm and compliance sectors, which will deliver a
broader offer of technologies within local markets via a more
integrated approach.
In this short column, I’ve only been able to cover a fraction
of what developments we’ve released in 2017 and the
enhancements, tools, technologies and value adds that
we’ve got planned for 2018. The articles contained in this
edition of ‘Thoughts for food’, will elaborate further on these
topics and will also introduce you to our team, partners,
objectives and ambitions.
Happy reading!
Jonathan
Jonathan Evans, Managing Director, Muddy Boots Software
In this issue:
4
6
8
10
11
12
12
Business intelligence and data insights
Muddy Boots moves to the Americas
Embracing an agile way of working
Agriculture, precision farming and data challenges
Meet the team - Josh Snook - Head of User Experience
Paving the way for Greenlight Grower Management
Wynnstay Case Study: Improving margin over input costs
Worldwide Fruit Case Study: Improving the perception of quality
Muddy Boots around the globe
13
03
14
Why is Business Intelligence (BI) important?
Business Intelligence (BI) and data analysis has shifted from
simply ensuring a business is compliant, to delivering insight
and optimisation to help improve business processes and
efficiency. As businesses become increasingly data driven, BI
tools are providing valuable data analysis, helping to ensure
food supply chains are safer, effective and more sustainable.
Modern food sourcing means that the food we eat today
will hit a number of touchpoints before reaching our plates.
Coupled with tight margins, volatile markets, and changing
customer demands, the quantity of data being captured
within the food industry is set to grow exponentially in the
coming months.
BI facilitates collaboration across the whole supply chain
from grower to retailer who can now work together as never
before to ensure efficient delivery and food safety. More
significantly, it allows businesses to gain real-time visibility
and enables the automated, intelligent actions needed to
ensure that our food is of the highest quality, delivered on
time and prepared in optimal settings.
How does BI help maintain your brand reputation?
The food industry is not only huge and complex but it’s also
heavily scrutinised and it is therefore already generating
a vast amount of data. The horsemeat scandal of 2013, for
instance, saw a 140% increase in quality control checks being
conducted on our Greenlight Quality Control system. On the
one hand this poses a challenge in the management of data
that supply chains generate; but on the other, it offers huge
opportunity, as this data can provide significant insight to
the processes involved and enables supply chain members
to make informed, critical business decisions. Retailers and
large suppliers for example, are quickly able to identify areas
of risk (be it rogue suppliers, natural disasters or political
unrest to name a few) and make quick decisions regarding
reputable alternative sources a product can come from,
helping to ensure brand reputation remains intact.
Fundamentally, data technology drives efficiency, and that
comes in many forms. For instance, the data generated in
our Greenlight Supplier Approval software can eliminate
duplication of supply, so if two different distributors are
delivering goods from a single supplier, this can be quickly
identified and analysed, allowing the opportunity to
streamline this supply, and source directly from the original
suppliers. This will inevitably have an impact on waste and
the opportunity to introduce savings.
By always having the most up-to-date information of the
retailer specifications, growers and suppliers are always
aware of the customer’s wants and expectations. In the case
of one of our customers an improvement in productivity and
Visualise & analyse your data in just a few clicks
Insights highlights problems, hones in on them & allows you to make informed decisions in real-time.
workflow across the company’s supply chain has more than
halved the intake rejection rate across its fresh produce
lines. In terms of accessibility, as smartphones and tablets
play a greater role in day-to-day business practices, the
opportunity for more people to assess and utilise this data
increases. This in itself cuts cost as bespoke hardware
becomes a thing of the past. For Waitrose, the use of our
Greenlight Quality Control iPhone app has saved 71 days of
checking time alone.
How do our tools unlock data potential?
As more data is captured from different data sources, finding
key insights simply can’t be achieved in tools such as
Excel. It is therefore really important that our customers are
provided with a fluid and flexible data analytics tool to help
them quickly and easily examine data sets whilst considering
customer specific demands and changing markets.
Insights (powered by Tableau), our data discovery and
analytics tool, translates data into easy-to-access insight,
from which our customers can make timely and informed
business decisions. It is capable of analysing any data set
and lets customers drill deep into their data in order to drive
business decisions.
Our customers have benefited from the speed at which they
can now access and analyse their data; its ease of use;
and the granular detail of being able to visualise problems
relating to seasonality, location, poor performing suppliers,
and so on. It subsequently allows for more responsive
action when a problem arises, or proactive actions on likely
upcoming seasonal issues. It really is transforming the
way our customers make decisions about their business
particularly in an industry that is constantly changing and
adapting to customer demands.
Without systems like this in place, the process of supply
chain management is lengthy, unwieldy and resource-
hungry. Insights can be tailored to create customised reports
to share with stakeholders, setting parameters and creating
automatic alerts if anything falls outside of those guides. The
ability for users to upgrade their Insights package unlocks
more value within their data. And with great data comes great
power.
To learn more about Insights, or any of our software
solutions, call our team on +44 (0)1989 780540 or email
sales@muddyboots.com.
05
We’ve moved into the Americas with global cold chain and supply chain visibility leader, Sensitech Inc.
We are taking our market-leading quality and supply chain
management software to the Americas following the signing
of a commercial partnership agreement with global cold and
supply chain visibility leader, Sensitech Inc. (www.sensitech.
com).
Sensitech offers a variety of visibility solutions, and is best
known for TempTale® cold chain tracking devices and
validated cold chain software ColdStream® Cold Chain
Manager (CCM). TempTale monitors are commonly used
within a consignment of perishable or temperature sensitive
goods, and continuously record data as the shipment makes
its way from supplier to customer, ensuring that shippers
and receivers are confident that the integrity of the goods
remains intact.
Real-time location technology, including GPS capability,
tracks where the consignment has been, while temperature,
light and other sensor recordings provide a clear picture of
where any limits were exceeded, for how long, and where
along the journey discrepancy happened. This information
helps mitigate the risk of product integrity issues, but also has
an enormous impact on reducing waste, improving efficiency,
increasing product shelf life, and assuring brand reputation.
There are clear synergies between Sensitech’s product
offerings and our quality assurance and supply chain
management software. In the food market, both address
similar issues for common target customers; the combined
product offers complement one another in terms of food
safety and waste reduction.
“We’re constantly looking for ways to enhance our products
and integration with third-party products is part of that
strategy,” explains Jonathan Evans, Managing Director of
Muddy Boots. “The integration of TempTale data within our
Greenlight Quality Control product represents an appealing
value proposition for our customers. This partnership is a
strategic move that aims to enhance the overall product
offer.”
Jonathan further explains that the decision to collaborate
with Sensitech extends beyond a complementary product
offer. This strategic alignment allows us to extend our offer
to the Americas. For many years, Muddy Boots has focused
on the highly evolved, European food quality sector, and
now looks forward to the wealth of untapped potential an
Americas’ market penetration will bring the corporation.
“We recognise the appeal partnering with Sensitech will
bring, given their 25-plus years of success in the existing
Americas’ market. They have a well-established customer
base, and with a highly skilled presence on the ground,”
said Jonathan, “to start, we plan to see our software solutions
percolate through the U.S. food industry, just as we have
managed to do in the UK and Europe.”
Sensitech’s Vice President of Strategic Marketing and
Business Development, Marc Beasley explains how the new
partnership will also bolster his company’s offer:
“We’re delighted to team up with Muddy Boots. We follow
the food quality management solution’s market closely, and
it is clear that Muddy Boots has a unique combination of
strategic advantages. Not only do they have a track record
of successfully building relationships and solving problems
with high-volume food industry customers, they also have a
deep understanding of the unique challenges in managing
perishable food quality and working with perishables’
vendors.”
“Muddy Boots’ product suite covers the breadth of a quality
management agenda, up and down the supply chain,
eliminating the need to use ‘stovepipe’ systems. It’s also
highly configurable, easy-to-use and can be run on multiple
device types, including mobile and offline.”
Integration is currently underway to incorporate
TempTale device data into the Muddy Boots’
Greenlight Quality Control platform. This integration
will provide customers of both companies
with total visibility into the quality performance of their
perishable produce from dispatch, throughout the
transportation journey, and through to arrival at the retailer.
About Sensitech:
Sensitech Inc. focuses on delivering supply chain visibility
solutions that track, monitor and protect products for global
leaders in the food, life sciences, consumer goods, and
industrial markets. Our solutions concentrate in three key
areas: quality and compliance, supply chain security, and
logistics performance management. Sensitech Inc. is an
ISO 9001:2008 company, headquartered in Beverly, Mass.,
with more than 35 sales, service and distribution locations
around the world. Sensitech is a part of UTC Climate, Controls
& Security, a unit of United Technologies Corp., a leading
provider to the aerospace and building systems industries
worldwide. Visit www.sensitech.com for more information.
07
Embracing an Agile way of working
In today’s dynamic and fast paced world, companies unable
to adapt quickly will go out of business. It is equally important
that the process of designing and building software follows
the same philosophy and is able to respond quickly to the
changing needs of the industry and our customers. It is for
this reason that Muddy Boots decided to move fully to the
Agile methodology.
What exactly is Agile Development?
In its simplest form, Agile is an approach to software
development that builds and delivers software incrementally
from the very start of a project, rather than trying to deliver
it all at once near the end. It works by breaking projects
down into little bits of user functionality called ‘user stories’,
prioritising them, and then continuously delivering them in
short two week cycles called ’iterations’.
Iterative development means starting with something really
simple and adding to it incrementally over time. It also
means that each successive version of the product is usable,
and builds upon the previous version by adding user-visible
functionality.
Our order of development is governed by the product
roadmap, which is created through collaboration with our
customers and an understanding of future industry needs.
The features within the roadmap are broken down into user
stories and managed in the product backlog.
The backbone of the Agile process is the team. In Muddy
Boots we have one for each product and comprises of a
Product Owner, Scrum Master, Developers and Testers. They
operate as a close knit, high performing team, ensuring a
shared knowledge of the design, develop and testing with a
focus on continuous improvement.
09
What does this mean for you?
Collaboration
Agile provides many opportunities for
collaboration between our customers and
our product teams. Closer working facilitates
an opportunity for us to truly understand
our customers’ vision and to work towards
prioritising, building and delivering the
features into the product that provide the
most business value to them.
Quick and predictable delivery
With fixed schedule sprints of two week
intervals, new features are delivered
quickly and frequently, with a high level of
predictability. This has meant that for all
our products we are able to release software
that has incremental business value at
regular intervals.
Continuous improvement, flexibility and change
During each iteration, there is an
opportunity to constantly refine and
reprioritise the overall product backlog.
New or changed backlog items can be
planned for the next iteration, providing the
opportunity to introduce changes within a
few weeks.
Focuses on our customers
Agile commonly uses user stories to
define product features. By focusing
features on the needs of real users, each
feature incrementally delivers value to our
customers, not just an IT component.
Quality
By breaking down the product into manageable
units, the product team can focus on high
quality development, testing, and collaboration.
Also, by producing frequent builds and
conducting testing and reviews during each
iteration, quality is improved by finding
and fixing defects quickly and identifying
mismatches early. The shared understanding
throughout the team also means the team is
more resilient and there is no single point of
failure.
Agriculture, precision farming tools and data challenges
Agriculture is facing exponential change in the way
operations are automated on farm, and the amount of data
that can be collected during any single season is enormous.
All of this makes farming an ever more complex working
environment but having said that, the opportunities and
potential related to income/yield is worthwhile to all growers,
if efficiently exploited.
We’ve all read about robotic fruit picking, weed control
done by lasers, drone maps predicting yield and quality
and driverless tractors. Today, a growing number of large
corporations are investing heavily in these technologies to
drive production efficiencies across their operations.
There has been a rapid increase in the use of drone
technology to capture imagery across broader crop
areas. This valuable tool now helps to capture data that
can be used to assess soil EC status, crop health, nutrient
status, growth stage, plant populations, yield quantity and
quality and weed and pest areas. Each of these analyses
can then be used to drive application decisions that can
positively affect yield and the grower’s income or product
marketability.
Legislation on the use of drones is still proving restrictive in
some countries. However, where there are vast expanses of
cropping in places like Southern America, USA, Canada and a
few larger African countries, drones can provide easy access
to crop information that can then be quickly validated. This
also enables more specific, targeted treatments potentially
extending chemical product life cycles and reducing
environmental impact which must be an ultimate aim for all
growers and their consumers.
Precision farming, specifically related to soil zones, variable
rate applications, spot treatments and yield maps, has now
become more easily accessible as an increasing number
of platforms and systems interact. These different data sets
can then be shared, layered and viewed in a user-friendly
environment. Combine this with the potential of automated
tractors and machine learning, and you can appreciate the
challenge facing most growers. Where do they invest, and
how do they get a return on investment?
Greenlight Grower Management is helping growers to shape
their investment decisions. Bringing together the different
services creates an environment to layer and view these
data sets and connects them seamlessly to other third party
systems. Muddy Boots offers growers a central platform from
which to make informed farming decisions. With Greenlight
Grower Management, growers will shortly be able to select
which additional services they require, add them to their
Greenlight Grower Management system and have a real-time
system that holds all the farm, field, crop input and cost data
from which they can analyse their farming operation and
seek solutions that will drive the biggest efficiencies for their
individual circumstances.
This approach of linking decision tools across farm data is
rapidly making Greenlight Grower Management the farm
management platform of choice in many countries across
the globe and is helping thousands of farmers to drive
efficiencies, compliance and safety at the farm gate.
Meet the team! Josh Snook - Head of User Experience
Tell us about the Head of User Experience role at Muddy
Boots.
I’m very pleased to be working within the Production team
as Head of User Experience. This role is incredibly exciting,
with a core focus on evolving our products and services to
improve the experience for our customers and to meet the
future needs of the food industry.
Why is this role important at Muddy Boots and to our
customers?
Our customers are what keeps us in business and their world is
rapidly changing. Increased legislation, advanced consumer
dynamics, seemingly omnipotent social media, tighter
margins, new methodologies, the latest technology and the
geo-political landscape are driving the pace of change.
Fundamentally the way our customers perceive and consume
software applications today is almost unrecognisable from a
decade ago, or even 5 years ago when I started at Muddy
Boots. What they expect and require from us as a software
provider has also evolved and it’s critical this is reflected
in our vision and where we want to take our software in the
future.
Which business departments do you work with, and how does
this collaborative approach help our future product offer?
Pretty much all of them! User Experience is a broad remit
so whilst my main interaction is with the Production and
Commercial teams, it’s fair to say I work with Professional
Services and Service Delivery closely as well to support
their ambitions and ideas for how User Experience can be
improved.
It’s no secret that the vision for our solutions is a more
integrated suite of products through which you can analyse
and exchange data across all our applications to gain the
greatest value and efficiency. This means that a collaborative
approach is mission critical, as without successful
collaboration between our various teams, we cannot realise
this goal.
What kind of skills do you need to be good at your job?
I think you need to be a creative problem solver and a good
communicator. You need to be able to evaluate complex
information and provide insight and analysis that helps inform
our strategy. Most importantly of all though, you need to be
able to understand our customers and build relationships
with our users that are meaningful, productive and where trust
levels are high.
Finally, you need passion for what we do, what we’re about, for
our industry, for our customers and for solving their problems
through our solutions. Without that passion, it’s going to be a
rough ride.
11
Paving the way for Greenlight Grower Management
For users of any computer technology, keeping their software
up-to-date and their data backed-up is a real concern.
However, the advance of cloud-based platforms has
automated this process and significantly reduced the risk of
data loss and systems being out of date.
CropWalker, our PC-based farm software, has used the
same base technology for the past 15 years. However with
advances in modern computing software and the increasing
use of ‘big data’ for decision support, this has made
CropWalker increasingly difficult to support.
Growers who are already using our new secure cloud-based
system, Greenlight Grower Management, can now integrate
systems or data sets, quickly access the data for decision-
making, and easily share selected data with different
stakeholders. This includes activities like precision farming
where the integration with machinery produces larger and
more complex data files that need to be accessed and
shared, or where up-to-date information is needed (often
from remote locations or out in the field) in order to make time
sensitive or critical decisions.
Support for CropWalker will cease at the end of 2018 which
means that these users will need to decide which platform to
use in future. Muddy Boots will however transfer the relevant
crop and chemical data from CropWalker to Greenlight
Grower Management to make this change a smooth and easy
process.
Most CropWalker functionality is available within Greenlight
Grower Management which has been designed to be more
intuitive and easy to use with feedback from users being
overwhelmingly positive. Additionally, new features and
functionality are released every 2 weeks bringing new
capabilities that were not possible with CropWalker.
Users are benefiting from clear field and crop mapping.
Nutrient planning integration during Q1 2018 replaces the
old PLANET system and other integrated features such as
product ordering, price list management, cost and gross
margins, multi-field cropping, templates and more, further
enriches this experience.
Greenlight Grower Management is transforming user
experience, saving time and reducing costs for growers
globally.
Worldwide Fruit Ltd., based in Spalding, Lincolnshire, is a supplier of
apples, pears, avocado and stonefruit to the UK supermarkets. Jointly
owned by Turners and Growers (ENZA), based in New Zealand, and Fruition
Producer Organisation, based in the UK, the business is responsible for
marketing approximately 35% of the domestic UK apple and pear crop,
and is the exclusive marketing agent for the ever-popular Jazz apple
variety. They buy product from approximately 30 countries and work with
100 suppliers from around the world.
Tony Harding, Technical Director, Worldwide Fruit:
“Supplying our customers with high quality product is a critical requirement
for our business, as is being able to provide our suppliers with feedback on
their quality performance. We are constantly reviewing the opportunities to
remove waste from our supply chain and subsequently the ability to quickly
interrogate quality performance at a granular level is very important to us.
This was a big part of the decision to adopt Greenlight Quality Control from
Muddy Boots.
“Now, all of our quality information is located in one system, allowing us
to look at batches of product through its various stages of process within
our system. The software’s ease of use and the ability to create bespoke
templates and requirements was also very important in helping us make
the decision to work with Muddy Boots.
“Greenlight Quality Control has delivered a massive improvement to our
business. We have seen a significant improvement in the intake pass rate
across our product groups. By feeding back precise and timely quality
data our suppliers are proactively trying to improve their performance
week on week and year on year.
“Greenlight QC is also something our growers are enjoying and finding
useful. Having a simple, standardised way of reporting their quality
performance has helped us drive raw material quality improvements
across the business.
“The ability to report instantly on quality performance trends has helped
drive improved ways of working with our operational and procurement
teams. Fundamentally, we believe Greenlight Quality Control has
improved the perception of our quality function with both our customers
and suppliers.”
13
Wynnstay case study: Improving margin over input costs
Wynnstay’s arable team are working closely with us to drive informed decision-making and efficient record keeping
for customers. As an advice-driven supplier of agrochemicals, fertiliser and seed, Wynnstay are using Muddy Boots
to ensure customers are accurately managing their inputs activities and costs to identify cost saving opportunities,
plan applications around weather conditions for optimum timing and to analyse the success of spray applications with
geo-located inspections.
Greenlight Grower Management will enable Wynnstay’s agronomists to work with their customers through recording
and sharing crop records, fertiliser and nutrient plans on both desktop and mobile formats.
Dr Simon Pope, Crop Protection Manager, Wynnstay, comments; “Greenlight Grower Management is a cutting-edge
system from Muddy Boots. It is cloud-based, user-friendly and builds a fantastic data platform for informed decision-
making – essential for profitable crop production.
“Our team of agronomists utilise their field experience, technical knowledge and the Greenlight Grower Management
platform to improve yields and margin over input costs. We provide tailored agrochemical and fertiliser plans, record
application dates and monitor weed, pest, disease and nutritional issues over many seasons. In this way a detailed
agronomic history of the farm is built up which is invaluable for targeting inputs accurately.”
Worldwide Fruit case study: Improving the perception of quality
7 hubs
across 6
countries
1996
UK Herefordshire
Kenya
20
08
Australia
2009
New Zealand
2009
Germany
2014
UK Bristol
2013
US Partner with
Sensitech
2017
Nairobi, Kenya
Australia and New Zealand
Hamburg, Germany
15
Our Kenyan office, based in Nairobi, is headed up by David
Lawrence-Brown and a team of four. It is based centrally
with good facilities and easy access to the Horticultural,
Floricultural and Agricultural producing areas.
The region is a major provider of exported fresh produce
into Europe and the Middle East which allows our customers
to have global products delivered and tailored to local
requirements and specifications.
Our businesses core focus in 2018 will be on the flower
producers and exporters in Kenya where there remains a
strong requirement for our software. We would like to see
30% penetration into this sector in the coming 15 months.
Kenya continues to be the world leader in fresh produce
export into UK supermarkets. With the flower market now being
more valuable and with strong prices, there is a lot of interest
in the industry to support these businesses in becoming more
efficient and more effective.
Ethiopia is now the second biggest producer of flowers so
there will be keen interest to see products delivered into this
market as well.
Our Australian and New Zealand (ANZ) offices, based in
Melbourne and Auckland respectively, are headed up by
Jason Consadine and a team of five. The ANZ food and
farming industry maintains a global position in agricultural
production, even though food in Australia is produced on
the driest inhabited continent with low quality soils, and New
Zealand risks rich farmland loss through the demand for
urban development.
The future in food production in Australia and New Zealand will
lie within sophisticated agricultural science and technology
to deliver a strong and prosperous future.
The Australian government is supportive of growth and
development in this space as well as technology to assist in
maximising the production and export potential for the ANZ
region.
The ANZ Muddy Boots Software team provides innovative
technology and support for food and farming customers to
help secure future growth and long term success, both for our
business and, more importantly, our customers.
Hajo heads up our German team who are based in Hamburg
in offices centrally located near the port. As large amounts
of fresh produce are unloaded and handled at the port it
is a convenient location for our German customers and a
gateway to serve other European clients.
Christina, an Account Manager, is responsible for closely and
proactively managing our customer relationships. Christina
predominantly focuses on our product quality tool, Greenlight
Quality Control. Vivien, our Project Manager, is responsible for
the management of customer projects and implementation
of our products to our customers. Hajo is the Senior Business
Development Manager and is responsible for strategic
development in the European region.
Over the last 12 months, the team has seen a sharp increase
in the number of enquiries and demand for software solutions
that enable companies to manage their quality assurance
and compliance processes both internally and externally in
their supply chain.
Muddy Boots around the globe
As supply chains become even more globalised, and the
need for quality management and compliance is felt at
every corner of the globe, the demand for our products is
far-reaching.
Over the last few years, Muddy Boots has experienced rapid
growth both domestically and internationally. We celebrated
the recruitment of our 100th employee at the beginning of
2017; with our staff now spanning 7 hubs across 6 countries.
Our tools are helping to make global food supplies safer and
more sustainable.
CONTACT US
t. +44 (0)1989 780540
e. sales@muddyboots.com
w. www.muddyboots.com
@MuddyBootsLtd
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