May 31, 2019
Agritecture sat down with NATIVE before this year’s GreenTech Conference in Amsterdam. NATIVE is participating at the Vertical Farming pavilion at GreenTech 2019.
Agritecture: What are some of the key challenges today around getting traceable, local food from the farm to the table?
NATIVE: Communication of real-time inventory and harvest data from farms to their buyers. Most often farmers aren’t using any digital tools to keep track of their inventory and few are using CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools. If they are, those platforms don’t integrate and communicate with one another to allow for real time communication to their buyers. And they likely were not built with farmers needs in mind.
What is NATIVE, and how does it help to solve this problem?
NATIVE is a B2B platform designed to democratize agricultural data, using an end-to-end software solution, and empower growers to meet the rising demand for traceable, local goods. The company integrates real-time technology throughout the supply chain to accelerate traceability, sustainability, and return on investment.
Can you tell us a little about the technology itself, and how it was developed?
NATIVE is a two sided software platform. The first software tools are utilized at the beginning of the supply chain: the farm. Our post harvest management system built for farms is an inventory and CRM hybrid, enabling farmers to capture real harvest data and allocate goods to their buyers immediately upon harvest. Each farm also has a NATIVE marketplace they can use to communicate inventory to wholesale buyers who do not have static, recurring orders. The marketplace is most often used by restaurant chefs to create local menu items that may change on a weekly basis, to reflect the most seasonal items. The NATIVE platform was built entirely in house by our Head of Product & Engineering, Alex Lukens.
How interested have local farmers been in this solution so far?
NATIVE has been launched in 3 key markets: New York, St. Louis & Cincinnati. Due to high demand in other markets we will continue to launch in additional cities on the east coast later this year.
What is your vision for NATIVE in 5 years from now?
Our vision for NATIVE is to be the data platform which will become the backbone of a more local, traceable food system.
Author Bio: Sarah Sanders is the Co-founder & Co-CEO at NATIVE, a New York based AgTech company with offices in the Midwest. Sarah has dedicated her career to building high-impact, scalable software companies.