Guanajuato/Mexico, Sevilla/Spain – Fortune Growers, a leading broccoli producer in Mexico, and ec2ce, an agriculture technology company based in Spain, announced today their collaboration to deploy advanced predictive analytics in the broccoli sector in Mexico to improve operations by maximizing high quality products for the export market.
The prediction of broccoli productivity and cycle-optimum harvest timing will improve commercialization of vegetable production from different farms and varieties planted, as well as harvesting and logistics operations to match supply and demand with superior food safety compliance.
Another project being deployed in the state of Guanajuato is for predictive pest and disease control, which allows farmers to diminish crop damage through data-informed preventive actions, instead of solely relying on reactive scouting practices. The predictive pest and disease system from ec2ce is calibrated with historical data from monitoring and scouting, updated with geolocated climatic and satellite indexes, and is able to provide actionable information for the farmer to prevent aggressive pest evolution.
“This strategic alliance with ec2ce represents an extraordinary opportunity to increase the digitalization of our farms and improve the decision-making process in our operations,” said Luis Solarte, president of Fortune Growers.
Fortune Growers Mexico operations have a proven process for growing and sourcing vegetables for over 15 years. “We efficiently manage an optimal cold-chain for exportation in addition to direct transportation to facilities with no cold-chain breakage, providing a reliable year-round availability thanks to a complete and truly vertically integrated supply chain.”
The strategic focus of Fortune Growers is to integrate different technologies for optimizing safety, productivity, and sustainability of vegetable production. In addition to ec2ce, Fortune’s strategy includes partnerships with Bayer, Sakata, AgTools, and Famous Software, resulting in state-of-the-art, full tech solutions that are piloted, scaled, and deployed across its grower network and operations. “The goal of the company is to become the leading vegetable producer and distributor from Mexico into high value markets in the US and Canada,” explained Mr. Solarte.
According to Pedro Carrillo, CEO of ec2ce, “this partnership is a very important step in the strategic roadmap of the company entering in the Mexican specialties agriculture sector, Fortune Growers demonstrate a visionary strategy for managing the complete supply chain to provide clients with the best quality product on time.”
The Spanish technological company is initiating its operations in Mexico and North America after demonstrating a successful track record in the past 7 years with leading vegetable and fruit companies in Europe, from multinational seed companies to major specialties producers and processors. “This is a great opportunity for us to demonstrate the value that data analytics and predictive analytics provides to decision makers in companies who care about quality food and optimum distribution to match supply and demand,” said Mr. Carrillo. “Additionally, our company is able to provide predictive pest and disease management systems which are able to anticipate the pest pressure and prevent the damage occurred at farms. ec2ce and Fortune Growers are already in conversations with the Comité Estatal de Sanidad vegetal de Guanajuato (Cesaveg) to prepare a Predictive Pest and Disease Predictive Management System for all veggies producers affected by the Plutella xylostella pest in the region.
Luis Solarte highlights that Fortune Growers is working directly with producers, companies, government agencies and other organizations to accelerate and deepen the positive impact the company can make. Fortune Growers is growing its partnerships in the change process, where “we (Fortune Growers) have invested directly in the continuous improvement of agricultural production with interest-free financing programs, food safety support services, a full range of training offerings, technical support, etc. using all possible financial resources to continue our mission of social and economic development in the region.” Fortune Growers has expanded and diversified the markets and we continue to work on optimizing this entire chain, seeking efficacy and efficiency to achieve the highest levels of sustainability, zero waste, and the highest levels of safety.
Fortune Growers has initiated a broccoli pilot program with its small and medium-size farmers in the state of Guanajuato. This initiative, now supported by ec2ce can be replicated and applied for all vegetable products with over fifty producers in the Fortune Growers network. Fortune Growers continues to grow and expand its network across Mexico and is committed to promoting and supporting small and medium farmers, supporting the implementation of a complete program that includes commercialization, marketing, legal support, regulatory compliance, business administration, logistics, relations with institutions in the countries involved, strategic alliances with suppliers, financial structuring, risk management and brand positioning. Fortune Growers’ model combines the Secretariat of Agriculture, the National Agro-Alimentary Health, Safety and Quality Service (SENASICA) public policies and Contamination Risk Reduction Systems (SRRC) with US FDA requirements to ensure full compliance from multiple concurring perspectives. Under this model, Fortune Growers verifies that all products satisfy U.S. Good Agricultural Practices and contribute to a sustainable network of farmers.
About Fortune Growers
With over 75 years of combined produce experience, Fortune Growers is a true innovator in the produce industry and takes great pride in being on the cutting edge when it comes to Growing, Sourcing, Food Safety and Produce Logistics across North America. With a multinational growing approach, Fortune Growers consistently supplies the freshest and highest quality produce on a year-round basis. Fortune Growers is among one of the largest growers of Broccoli in Mexico, but also grows large volumes of Carrots, Cabbage, Celery, Green Onions, Cauliflower, Lettuce and a variety of other commodities at their growing cooperatives in California, Mexico and Canada. Since Fortune Growers’ customers are working directly with a premier grower/shipper, they have direct access to a consistent supply of high-quality produce. This eliminates additional markups, and reduces the time involved so that our customers receive the freshest produce possible.
About ec2ce
ec2ce operates a proprietary AI-powered engine with a suite of add-on services that helps farmers, processors, and wholesalers to make smarter decisions to improve return and sustainability. ec2ce’s innovative mathematical solutions provide novel insights and best-in-class predictive analytics to customers to anticipate better decisions affecting profitability and sustainability in food supply chain, such as seeds selection and performance forecasting, productivity forecasting, predictive pest management, and optimization of inputs. ec2ce has operations and recurrent customers in Europe and LatAm, with targeted markets in expanding operations in Mexico and California. ec2ce is one of the startups highlighted by different analysts, as CB Insights, The Mixing Bowl, Better Food Ventures, and Marketsandmarkets, as a key player in predictive modelling within the ag-tech arena.
