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