McCain Foods Continues to Drive Innovation in Agriculture with Launch of Presia Ag Insights
New business unit will support food companies, landowners and farmers foster on-farm resilience and support the adoption of regenerative agricultural practices.
TORONTO, Nov. 28, 2023 /CNW/ - Continuing its commitment to drive innovation and advance new technologies in agriculture, McCain Foods is proud to announce the launch of Presia Ag Insights ("Presia"). A newly formed business unit wholly owned by McCain, Presia is the result of a decade of collaboration to develop digital technologies, supporting farmers in building resiliency within their operations.
With Presia, farmers and crop-sourcing partners can better evaluate and predict crop yields, optimize harvest timing and enhance on-farm sustainability practices. Specializing in satellite-based, data-driven intelligence that can transform the way we understand crop growth, Presia will accelerate the future of farming and foster the monitoring and adoption of regenerative agricultural practices by stakeholders across the agriculture sector.
"Launching Presia advances McCain's innovative agriculture agenda, providing an opportunity to build off the expertise we have developed in potatoes to offer leading capabilities to other food businesses and farmers," says Peter Dawe, Chief Growth and Strategy Officer at McCain Foods. "It is driving data intelligence that is helping us change the way we grow a potato."
Presia is the evolution of McCain's acquisition of the predictive crop portfolio from Resson in 2022. That portfolio includes vision-intelligence-based technologies that better leverage field data and satellite imagery to assess more accurately the status of a potato crop. The Resson team that managed the predictive crop intelligence portfolio joined McCain in June 2022; over the past year, the team — and product — has continued to evolve and is excited to launch under the Presia banner.
"Presia supports our farmer and crop-sourcing partners in building resiliency within their operations and strengthening decision-making capabilities through the use of satellite imaging and machine learning," says Tyler Hennick, Managing Director of Presia. "We are proud to offer existing and new customers more frequent and accurate readings on their in-season crop performance within and across entire fields and regions."
Based in Ontario and Eastern Canada, the Presia team is comprised primarily of data scientists and software developers, with nearly a decade of experience working with crop-monitoring technologies on potatoes.
The insights from Presia's data and models will help its customers better manage their crops, support earlier yield estimates with greater accuracy, and improve crop monitoring and sampling efficiency. While the focus is currently on potatoes, Presia's data and models could be expanded to other crops in the future.
"We are focused initially on measuring plant health, supporting crop quality, and tracking regenerative agriculture practices. This expertise has been built within potato with plans to support similar insights in other specialty crops," says Mr. Hennick. "We are getting more data on region and variety-specific nuances to inform our modelling and can work with our partners to measure the indicators that matter to them most."
For more information, please visit presia.ca and mccain.ca.
McCain Foods (Canada) is the Canadian division of McCain Foods Limited, an international leader in the frozen food industry. McCain Foods is the world's largest manufacturer of frozen potato specialties, and also produces other quality products such as appetizers, vegetables and desserts that can be found in restaurants and retail stores in more than 160 countries around the world. In Canada, the company has seven production facilities with approximately 2,400 employees and, in addition to its famous French fries and potato specialties, makes frozen desserts, snacks and appetizers.
SOURCE McCain Foods
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