Pioneering Ventures Becomes Innoterra on a Mission to Help Transform the Global Food Ecosystem

Pioneering Ventures, a Swiss-Indian incubator of agri, food and technology businesses since 2004, has announced the establishment of a new corporate entity, Innoterra. Consolidating its five successful food, finance, and tech businesses, Innoterra aims to produce and supply high-quality, safe, and traceable food from farm to fork in a sustainable, farmer-friendly way.

The company is also building an integrated platform to connect the entire agri-food value chain to provide farmers access to technology, market, and affordable finance. Formed with the objective to transform the global food ecosystem, Innoterra is committed to create value for all stakeholders with its impact-driven purpose.

The incubated companies that have now become the Innoterra group companies, include Desai AgriFoods (formerly Desai Fruits and Vegetables), Samaaru, Farmlink, Milklane, and Innoterra Tech (formerly Lateral Praxis).

Empowering Farmers with Access to Tech Solutions

Present in 14 countries, Innoterra provides products and services to 65,000 farmers and serves around 1.5 million consumers daily through a range of fully traceable, branded high-quality food products, including farm produce, food products, milk and milk products, etc.

The data-driven technology platform provides the farmers access to tech solutions from AI, big data and analytics to on-ground tech-integrated farm tools for traceability and monitoring. The platform also integrates knowledge sharing and easy access to affordable finance. The platform aims to build a community of connected stakeholders, driving economies of scale and benefitting each stakeholder from collective resources and expertise.

“In the next 30 years, we will have to increase food productivity by 70% to feed the 10 billion people then living on our planet. As food security and sustainability is becoming an important global challenge, we must critically question the status quo of the industry and the entire food ecosystem. Together, we need to facilitate a fundamental change,” Ron Pal, founder of Pioneering Ventures and CEO of Innoterra said in a statement.

“Our vision is to build one of the planet’s most impactful food ecosystem platforms with a strong focus on the farming community. We see our company as an integral part of the food ecosystem and view our role as an orchestrator with the mission to provide consumers access to healthier and more sustainably produced food, while empowering farmers and other stakeholders in the system,” he added.

“While developing and rolling out our platform, we will continue to scale up our food operations in India and further expand our sourcing and distribution footprint in regions such as the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and in China. We are also systematically working on the realization of the identified business synergies and the acceleration of profitable growth. Our efforts enable us to sustainably supply high-quality traceable products around the year to the addressable adjacent markets with a population of close to three billion people,” Akshaya Kamath, Chairman of Innoterra India, said.

Innoterra: Key facts and figures (as at February 2020)

• Daily production of 450 tons of healthy food that reaches over 1.5 million consumers
• 15,000+ farmer families engaged; 70,000 people positively impacted
• 120+ proprietary collection and distribution centres across India, the Middle East and the Philippines
• Digital platform services used by an additional 50,000 farmers and 500 collection centers
• Geographic footprint in 14 countries
• Operational team of 500+ full-time employees; tech and data team of 50+ people

Mission: To Transform the Food Ecosystem at Scale

Innoterra is a Swiss-Indian food and technology platform company operating in 14 countries. The company’s mission is to transform the food ecosystem at scale to ensure a sustainable supply of healthy food to the world.

Innoterra’s food business works closely with farmer communities in multiple sourcing regions. The company’s completely integrated supply chains ensure the highest levels of process efficiency and consistent high quality of its branded food products. Innoterra’s core products are fully traceable for its customers and consumers.

To create economic and social impact at scale, Innoterra has implemented a data-driven platform that combines digital and real-world measures. The platform creates value through data intelligence and network effects. It offers services empowering small and mid-scale farmers and other platform partners through improved access to information, insights, infrastructure, people, markets, and capital.