US: Driscoll’s adopts HarvestMark insights as part of its strategy

YottaMark Inc., provider of HarvestMark, the industry-leading fresh food traceability and insights platform, today announced that Driscoll’s, the leading provider of high-quality fresh berries, is expanding its use of the HarvestMark platform to include HarvestMark Insights. Announced last week as part of HarvestMark 2013, HarvestMark Insights provides on-demand tools and analytics that help Driscoll’s measure quality and freshness in the store and optimize its supply chain to deliver superior-quality berries. The expansion also marks a three-year renewal of Driscoll’s HarvestMark contract.

“We pride ourselves on delighting shoppers every day with only the finest berries,” said Scott Komar, group VP, supply chain at Driscoll’s. “For the first time, HarvestMark Insights gives us an integrated view of product quality and freshness, from harvest to the grocery store, and to the consumer’s home. With HarvestMark tools and analytics, we can now continuously monitor our end-to-end supply chain. This is another step in continuing our 100-year tradition of providing superior berries to the marketplace.”

Trends in health and wellness have made the produce department central to retailers’ growth strategies, and created opportunities for growers and shippers to differentiate their brands. Today 72 percent of shoppers choose their grocer based on the quality of the produce department. When shoppers are delighted by the freshness and quality in the department, they spend a third more in the produce aisle. While the center store has traditionally been able to maximize category performance with tools to measure product performance and shopper preferences, no similar tools have existed to address the challenges of perishable food. Now, HarvestMark Insights applies those same center-store concepts to the produce department, enabling fresh food brands like Driscoll’s to drive sales and shopper loyalty by optimizing their freshness and quality.

Today HarvestMark traceability is present on almost all berries on Driscoll’s ships to North America. With this extended program, harvest data flows into the HarvestMark platform via item-level traceability, where data is captured about each clamshell of berries. Store-level data is captured through edge-of-shelf quality and freshness observations collected by the HarvestMark team. Proprietary analytics then generate actionable insights about the drivers of freshness and quality, allowing Driscoll’s and retail partners to make critical supply chain decisions.

“HarvestMark Insights is the next generation of fresh food analytics, empowering companies to optimize freshness and quality by transforming data captured throughout the supply chain into actionable insights,” said Elliott Grant, YottaMark founder and Chief Technology Officer. “We’re honored to extend our relationship with Driscoll's, as the company known and respected for its high-quality fresh berries becomes one of the first to implement this solution. HarvestMark Insights will help Driscoll’s better understand its berries’ retail performance so it can optimize quality and freshness at the store and delight shoppers, ultimately building loyalty and increasing sales.”

For more information, visit http://www.harvestmark.com/

For more information about YottaMark, Inc., visit http://www.yottamark.com/

For more information visit www.driscolls.com