New ideas don’t come from innovators tinkering in garages, looking for angel investors, and hoping for big success. In-house innovators in large companies can also thrive when given the opportunity. From Lockheed to his IBM, these innovation his hubs have spawned new industries and businesses. Today, Cargill is using that approach to create future opportunities.
“We leverage our in-house expertise and food scientists,” says Eric Parkin of Cargill Digital Business Studio.
He said Cargill is now involved in business across the food chain, from crops and cattle to food service, and maintains connections with all sectors of the industry. “We don’t want to lose touch with the industry. We have a lot of committed people at Cargill,” he says.
A sort of innovator think tank, the studio has offices in Minneapolis as well as Singapore, India and Europe. Perkin admits that the model resembles Lockheed’s old “Skunk Works.” This allowed scientists to try new ideas with the chance of failure.
For Cargill, the freedom to fail is key to studio success. “Nine of our projects are already showing positive returns,” Parkin says.
The focus is on the 100 employees working inside the studio looking for new opportunities for innovation. He said nine were revenue streams, while a few others didn’t fare as well. Freedom to fail is what gives innovators room to act.
Parkin said that while the studio develops new ideas, it remains connected to Cargill’s infrastructure, which includes food scientists, crop experts, agronomists and others. Two of his innovations recently on display at his CES in Las Vegas were the food service box and the digital advisory service.
better restaurant service
Many restaurants have closed during the pandemic, but those that remained open were busy preparing food for delivery drivers to pick up and deliver to customers. Even though the pandemic has eased, these delivery drivers are still coming to restaurants to pick up food ordered online. While this is good business for restaurants, it can be difficult to serve both in-house customers and delivery drivers.
Perkin tells of a restaurant that was doing 70 to 80 “handovers” to delivery drivers each day. A person was hired just to move those orders to meet that need. A small restaurant cannot do that.
Enter the check. Developed at Cargill’s studio, the system is essentially a box. The boxes can be interconnected row by row and are all numbered. The kitchen prepares the meal order and inserts it into the Chekt box. Restaurants tell delivery drivers in which box a particular order is waiting. This eliminates the need for someone to take over in advance.
“You can also split the box into hot and cool sides,” explains Parkin.
Some restaurants are even considering separate entries so delivery drivers can enter, pick up orders from Chekt and move on, he said. This reduces the time lost both at the restaurant and the driver.
Chekt systems are leased by restaurants, which reduces initial costs and allows them to scale as their business grows. This innovation represents a new way for Cargill to work from farm to table.
small farmer innovation
The monthly income of over 100 million smallholder farmers in India is about US$120. Perkin says these farmers want access to inputs such as seeds and fertilizers, but have limited income. These farmers need access to agricultural information to increase their production.
Cargill built Digital Saathi, a mobile-based digital platform that uses artificial intelligence to help these farmers make better decisions. The program can provide hyperlocal digital advisory services and even access to crop input and output markets.
The system also provides agronomic advice and helps detect and identify crop diseases. “One farmer said his earnings increased by 13% after using this product in his first year,” he says. “With that 13%, his kids can go to better schools and he can invest more in his farm.”
Mobile-only solutions work well because India has strong cellular service. The country is leapfrogging the rest of the world by building pylons rather than investing in copper wire. Many small farmers also have mobile phones that they can use to gain the agricultural insights they need to be profitable and access the inputs they need.
Innovation in agriculture comes in many forms. Cargill Digital Business Studio shows that not all profitable new ideas come from someone’s garage. For more information, cargill.com/digitalstudio/home.
