McCain Foods has unveiled Presia Ag Insights, a wholly owned business unit created following a decade of collaboration to develop digital technologies to foster on-farm resilience and support the adoption of regenerative agricultural practices.
Specializing in satellite-based, data-driven intelligence that can transform the way crop growth is understood, Presia aims to accelerate the future of farming and foster the monitoring and adoption of regenerative agricultural practices by stakeholders across the agriculture sector.
“Launching Presia advances McCain’s innovative agriculture agenda, providing an opportunity to build off the expertise we have developed in potatoes to offer leading capabilities to other food businesses and farmers,” said Peter Dawe, chief growth and strategy officer at McCain Foods. “It is driving data intelligence that is helping us change the way we grow a potato.”
Presia is the evolution of McCain’s acquisition of Resson’s predictive crop portfolio, which includes vision-intelligence-based technologies that better leverage field data and satellite imagery to assess more accurately the status of a potato crop. The Resson team that managed the portfolio joined McCain in June of 2022. Over the past year it has continued to evolve and is eager to perform under the Presia banner.
“We are proud to offer existing and new customers more frequent and accurate readings on their in-season crop performance within and across entire fields and regions,” said Tyler Hennick, managing director of Presia.
Based in Ontario and Eastern Canada, the Presia team is comprised primarily of data scientists and software developers with nearly a decade of experience working with crop-monitoring technologies on potatoes.
While the focus is currently on potatoes, Presia’s data and models could be expanded to other crops in the future.
“We are focused initially on measuring plant health, supporting crop quality, and tracking regenerative agriculture practices. This expertise has been built within potato with plans to support similar insights in other specialty crops,” said Hennick. “We are getting more data on region and variety-specific nuances to inform our modeling and can work with our partners to measure the indicators that matter to them most.”
About McCain Foods
McCain Foods (Canada) is the Canadian division of frozen food giant McCain Foods Limited. McCain, best known globally as a leading manufacturer of value-added frozen potato specialties, also produces appetizers, vegetables and desserts that are marketed in both retail and foodservice sectors in more than 160 countries. In Canada, the company operates seven production facilities that provide jobs for approximately 2,400 employees.
