Welcome to the 168th edition of Upstream Ag Professional
Index
Proprietary Product Strategy Is Evolving: Are You Ready?
The Rise of the Private Label in Ag Retail
Building the Brand: Where Retailers Find Product Margin and Market Differentiation
Upstream Ag Insights Patent Analysis: John Deere, Meristem Crop Performance, Pivot Bio, InnerPlant and Mosaic
Lilac Agriculture raises $2.3m to tackle inoculants’ ‘black box’ problem
Major scientific breakthrough increases crop yields by using the plant’s own natural mechanisms
Vylor and Rainbow Crops Partner to Accelerate Development of Novel Gene-Edited Corn Traits
Quick Hits (9 this week)
Badge vs Scoreboard
Other Interesting Ag Articles (14 this week)
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No audio edition this week.
1. Proprietary Product Strategy Is Evolving: Are You Ready? - Upstream Ag Professional
One of my favourite topics is proprietary brand strategy, an area I love and think is incredibly fascinating.
This week, The Daily Scoop published two stories on the topic that I think are worth highlighting, and then I think the topic is worth diving into where proprietary products have came from, and where they are going.
The Rise of the Private Label in Ag Retail - The Daily Scoop
Building the Brand: Where Retailers Find Product Margin and Market Differentiation - The Daily Scoop
Index:
Overview
Beginnings
Proprietary Products as an Innovation Driver
Proprietary Framework Laddered Approach
What You Need to Enable Proprietary Execution
Final Thoughts
Overview
Proprietary product strategy has been emphasized within Upstream since the beginning of the publication, has come up often, such as in Navigating Strategic Development, Strategy Tax and the Opportunity in Uncertainty in Agribusiness, and is something that I have been a proponent of since my time working in ag retail, for many reasons, including those highlighted by Margy Eckalkamp, like the need to have a strategy for competing with generics, overcoming margin erosion, and the need to differentiate portfolios.
What I’d add is the element of control and optionality.
Specifically, overcoming reliance on suppliers that can govern growth and influence cash flow (eg: reliance on programs). Not to mention, you become reliant on them for innovation at a time when innovation is arising from various players and corners of the industry and not having a vehicle to capitalize on that leaves retail companies behind their competitors. Or, we could look at what happened with Bayer and Simplot or Winfield last month — you could be cut off from product access. Owning your own brand also delivers ability to influence customer experience (eg: bring in a product for your specific regional needs). Control is king.
For the full breakdown, check out the article in the heading.
2. Upstream Ag Insights Patent Analysis: John Deere, Meristem Crop Performance, Pivot Bio, InnerPlant and Mosaic - Upstream Ag Professional
Previously, I have put together thematic filing overviews — such as John Deere Precision Ag patent summaries, or ones specific to N-fixation, or surrounding fertilizer or crop protection formulation. Moving forward, I want to put together monthly overviews of some of the stand outs from recent filings and grants.
Here are the recent filings that caught my attention, and why. For the full breakdown, check out the link in the heading.
Deere - See & Spray Tank Management: Deere models weed pressure on the unsprayed acres to assess the fill needs so that the tank runs close to empty, including across separate grass and broadleaf tanks for multi-tank systems. Leftover mix has been an objection to See & Spray adoption, and this addresses it directly. Another potential upside is off-season forecasting with retailers and suppliers.
Meristem - BIO-CAPSULE: A cap-mounted capsule that keeps live biologicals sealed off until point of use, then a plunger releases them into whatever is already in the jug, delivering a unique packaging to solve microbe viability. The one tradeoff is another more step for the farmer at application.
InnerPlant - Traits as a System: Engineered plants fluoresce when stress pathways are responding. InnerPlant has intellectual property surrounding a sensing mesh from drones, to equipment, to satellites that picks up the signal in full daylight, and models diagnoses, maps, and can recommend when to spray and potentially get into assessing efficacy. This is the "data trait": the plant reports the problem rather than resisting it. Success depends on consistent signal capture, which is where Deere and other partners come in.
Pivot Bio - Always On Nitrogen Fixation: Edits to several nitrogen fixation genes essentially remove the microbe's N fixing governor, so it keeps fixing N even when soil N is plentiful.
Mosaic - Biologicals in Granular Fertilizer: Microbes are embedded in water droplets inside the dust reducing oil plants already apply to granular fertilizer, keeping organisms alive without caking the granule. It can be applied into existing plant operations with minimal capex.
3. Lilac Agriculture raises $2.3m to tackle inoculants’ ‘black box’ problem - AgFunder News
Lilac Agriculture, a North Dakota State University spinout based in Fargo, raised an oversubscribed $2.3 million seed round led by Innova. The company is developing rhizobial inoculants for pulses, starting with a pea and lentil product called PL11, selected for two traits at once: how efficiently a strain fixes nitrogen and how well it competes with native soil rhizobia to occupy root nodules.
The team is quite experienced. Alongside CEO Natalie DiNicola and CSO Dr. Barney Geddes, the founders include agtech veterans Matt Crisp and Tom Snipes, who was CEO of Plant Response, which was acquired by Mosaic.
I spent the majority of my agronomy career in the pulse growing regions of western Canada (where there are around 8-9 million acres grown annually) so lentils and peas were apart of most crop rotations I worked with, which is why this news caught my attention.
A few things stand out:
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