Keeping Things Fresh with Clarifruit and Dole Sunshine Company

In the latest season of Fresh Takes on Tech, we explore companies from International Fresh Produce Association’s Fresh Field Catalyst Accelerator and start things off by talking with Elad Mardix, CEO & Co-Founder at Clarifruit & Barbara Guerpillon, Global Head of Ventures at Dole Sunshine Company about how they’re working together for sustainability in produce.

Join us as we discuss:

• How Clarifuit is helping the Dole Sunshine Company with their six sustainability commitments
• The organic, regenerative and indoor movements
• How Clarifruit uses technology to create realtime data for freshness and quality
• What challenges are present by working with quality control from the cloud

Guest Info:

• Elad Mardix, CEO & Co-Founder at Clarifruit
• Barbara Guerpillon, Global Head of Ventures at Dole Sunshine Company

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Vonnie Estes, IFPA

Hello, I'm Vonnie Estes, your host of Fresh Takes on Tech. Welcome to our newest season in which we highlight companies in the Fresh Field Catalyst, an IFPA Accelerator. The accelerator is a six-month program bringing new technology into the produce industry. For more information on the accelerator, you can contact me or go to freshproduce.com. Today we are talking to Elon Mardix, the founder and CEO of Clarifruit, an Israeli based company that has a fresh produce QC platform. And as part of the cohort of this year's accelerator, he has invited a customer to join us in the conversation, Barbara Guerpillon, who is the Global Head of Dole Ventures from Singapore. Barbara's role is engaging with start-up companies to help Dole reach its goals. Clarifruit is one of those companies working with supply chain stakeholders on QC data to maximize profitability and reduce waste. I think you'll find both the technology and the partnership enlightening. Elad explain how you met Barbara, and what are you currently working on? How are you specifically engaged with Dole?

Elad Mardix, Clarifruit

Great, thank you Vonnie for inviting me. And thank you, Barbara and the Dole family supporting. So the relationship between Dole and ours actually started somewhere in 2020. When we were in and later stage of later stages of developing our AI powered quality control software. We've engaged with Dole late in 2020, and really rolled, rolled out this relationship in early 21. Through the partnership with their early-stage Sunshine Fund, which I'm sure Barbara's going to talk about later. With the goal to help Dole automate, the way they evaluate the quality of their produce categories along the entire supply chain. I think what drove it for both parties was Dole’s strong commitment to reduced waste, and make the entire supply chain management process much more efficient. And we bring a technology that we believe is going to be transformational to this industry, leveraging AI and some other software technologies. So we started really engaging with Dole on a pilot level in early 2021. We actually spent about four or five months with the team primarily in Singapore and Philippines, showcasing how the product works. And in mid-2021, actually, thr pilot was defined as successful and we move to commercial in the later stage, which we can talk about later.

Vonnie Estes, IFPA

Excellent, great. Barbara, how does Clarifruit fit into your business?

Barbara Guerpillon, Dole

We have made a very strong commitment to reduce our food loss to zero by 2025. And Clarifruit food technology helps us to reduce or improve our quality check and therefore reduce the waste that we are generating. But most importantly, I just declined to explain how we are looking at the importance of technology in in our business and why lamingtons really fit into what you're trying to do. The entire idea is to identify technology and partners that can help us to accelerate our transformation and deliver on our promise our six promises which is in short, our sustainability commitment. And we are starting we started this journey by recognizing that we cannot do it alone and acknowledging that we need external partners. So not only Clarifruit has brought to us a great technology but also a great team to work with. So, so far it has been a beautiful journey together.

Vonnie Estes, IFPA

And what are your plans for expansion? And are you looking at different crops now looking at different areas and different regions.

Barbara Guerpillon, Dole

So what our conventions are mainly based out of Southeast Asia, we have some patients in Thailand and Philippines. And we are looking at, we have four crops, bananas, pineapples, papaya. And today we are going to look at, we are looking at pineapple. And we are looking at expanding the use of clarity fruits within the pineapple business, but in other areas, but also outside of pineapple with bananas. And we need to take you through step by step. I mean, as much as we want to roll it out, you still have a lot of onboarding to do. And I would say a little bit of convincing as well. But the beauty is, as soon as the team understand the value actually guys up close, naturally the business on one interesting step that helped us to scale. Because this is the stage where we are now it's working with ASAP. ASAP helped us also to integrate the technology, we've been our work. So that contributed as well, a lot into the scalability of the solution.

Vonnie Estes, IFPA

Can you talk a little bit about how the teams engaged before we started recording this podcast? You were talking about having a meeting after this meeting with the teams talking to each other? And what is that like when you guys are spanning continents. And you started some of this during COVID? And just all these communication barriers? How did the teams work together? And is it big groups of teams? Or kind of how does that happen? Either one of you,

Barbara Guerpillon, Dole

Elad. But it's definitely a lot of holes. My role, as the head of venture for those sunshine company is to identify the technology and the teams to work with, and help them to connect with people in the business. So normally, and hopefully, we confirm the next step is really should be easier for him to roll out and expose the problem only once directly to the right people. And that's hopefully what we managed to do with that. And everything which is taking hold in I will be able to answer.

Elad Mardix, Clarifruit

Yeah, sure. So a couple of thoughts one. The car food software actually does not require an in-person attendance in order to deploy it at the client site. Now, from that perspective, actually COVID has been our friend. Yeah. Because, you know, it's one thing for me to tell that to Barbara and her team, it's a whole other thing for them to get comfortable with that. Now during COVID, honestly, our customers didn't have any choice, right, it was obvious that there's not going to be an in-person engagement. And so we were able to actually during 2021, deploy our software withdrawal, and a bunch of other customers with altogether almost about 600 inspectors in a totally remotely way. So we have not visited or seen those customers in order to deploy successfully our software, which I think is you know, it's a great testament to the ease of use of our software. But also, I think, kind of accelerating the shift on the customer side, that this can be actually performed very efficiently if the communication lines are, are open and consistent. I think the other thing that played out well, specifically with door for our perspective, was that the whole deployment process was very organized. There, signs project manager on the dole side, with incentive to make it successful in a specific timeframe. We have also devoted a specific project manager on our side. Both of those ladies connected very well and made this happen in the second half of 2021. And from that perspective, actually Dole sunshine is a model for us to how to do it successfully with all of our global customers.

Vonnie Estes, IFPA

That's great. Yeah, I'm sure that's it's not always the case that you've got a dedicated person who's incentivized to make it work because new technology can be so complicated to bring in. So What else have you been able to bring to dole that's different? What advantages have you brought to them?

Elad Mardix, Clarifruit

I think at the end of the day, it all goes, I always thought from the customer problems, pain points, right? Because at the end of the day, we were serving their pain points. And so the pain points that we have identified together with door where we're, you know, twofold. Number one toll did not have real time data with respect to the fresh produce quality, in order to optimize their decision-making process, right, they've already been performing quality control, obviously, without clarify, but it has been performed in a manual way, which is what the rest of the industry is still doing today. And so the access to data in real time was very limited. That's kind of point number one. Point number two is that the actual quality control process, the inspection process, that the inspector are performing throughout the entire supply chain, right, it could be at the field, it could be at the entrance of the packing house, or the departure of the packing house, and even at the destination markets, where it all actually does their own QC on behalf of their customers. It has been a manual process, where a human person is actually checking the size with sized wings and calipers and has a color palette in order to form with you on the color of the of the fruit, etc. And through our computer vision technology. We allow those to automate this inspection process by essentially using Cloud foods mobile app, through any smartphone device, by the way, and take pictures on the spot. And this technology essentially makes the inspection process objective and consistent, right. So it's not about what Vonnie thinks the quality of this pineapple on the west coast on Tuesday morning, or Barbara, five days later in Singapore, it's about what the machine thinks about the quality. And therefore it's going to be much more objective, and obviously much more consistent. So that's kind of that's addressing the second pain point I talked about. In the first point, which is access in real time to data, we obviously provide a cloud-based platform, which essentially allows the dole QC managers and inspectors wherever they are, they could be in the field or in the packing have complete an inspection in a couple of minutes, get access to a QC report with a grading immediately. And more importantly, get access to analytics that can help them optimize matching of quality of supply to customer specs. And that's really, you know, kind of the big data angle, which has been rolled out to a lot of other industries in the last, I would say eight to 10 years, but not so much to the agricultural supply chain. And through our platform, we essentially make it accessible to the fresh produce supply chain players.

Vonnie Estes, IFPA

Who are your other customers or types of customers that you work with and how it tell us a little bit about the company how big you are?

Elad Mardix, Clarifruit

Great. So Cloud food is it's actually a four year old startup. We're headquartered in Israel. Most of our employees are still in Israel, we have almost 30 employees today. Most of them are on our on the R&D side in Israel. But we actually operate globally today and have a local presence across the Americas Europe and now in Asia as well. We set up this company four years ago with one single goal, which is help the fresh produce supply chain reduce the waste across the entire supply chain. The way we do that, as I mentioned before, is by developing an AI based technology software that helps our customers automate the way they perform quality control. Now, at the end of the day, we believe that the only way to ultimately help the supply chain reduce waste is by deploying the software across the entire chain. Think about the grower on the upstream and down to the retailer at the downstream. We started actually with the largest marketing company or packer, she purchases us guys mostly and name it, which is where, for example, Dole Sunshine falls into this bucket. And the reason was that as we developed our computer vision technology, produce category by product category, for example, pineapple, we wanted to make sure that we are partnering with a design partner, who is a top three, you know, wholesaler or marketing company, right. So when I finished to develop my solution, with the Dole Sunshine help, and actually told us it and deployed commercially, I figured all the rest of the pineapple X odors or producers in the world would welcome that solution. So that has been our strategy. And so today, vast majority of our 25 customers are marketing companies such as dole sunshine. Some other names, they can mention some of the other leading brands in this industry, like Zespri on the kiwi side and San Lucar in Europe, and Pink Lady on the apple side and Mucci Farms in us and a bunch of other players globally. And that's how we really started, we are now actually have been expanding towards the downstream of the supply chain, and starting to partner with some of the bigger wholesalers and retailers, who by the way, perform their QC for fresh produce, in a very similar way to the way the marketing companies do it, the marketing company do it in much more detail, because they're experts on this product category. But the other guys in the supply chain do a very similar QC process. So our solution is highly applicable to all of them. And at the end of the day, we're also going to get obviously to the growers at the upstream of the supply chain. So end goal is to really standardize or help the supply chain standardize the way they evaluate quality across the supply chain, starting with the grower ending at the front store of the Walmart or the Marks & Spencer store. And hopefully, if everyone is going to be able to perform this QC with the Clarifruit app on any mobile device that they use, we're going to be able to help the supply chain reduce a lot of the quality mismatch that is taking place, and ultimately reduce the waste.

Vonnie Estes, IFPA

Great. So Barbara, just to you and your role and what you're working on. What are some of the areas that you are looking for in innovation?

Barbara Guerpillon, Dole

So a lot in a lot of different areas. The venturing team has been set up about two years ago with the clear objective or mandate to identify technology from the outside technology and partners from outside that can help us to accelerate our transformation. And beyond looking at three big areas which actually somehow overlaps. The first one is about identifying technology that will improve or align with our product innovation roadmaps with the big ambition to bring nutrition for all affordable, acceptable and equitable food for everyone. So you have a wide range of technology around nutrition ingredients, natural sweetener, natural preservatives that we'll be looking at. The second big area where the venture team plays is on our operation. We are vertically integrated, we own some of our foundations, and we have opportunities to look at technology from crop nutrition, health and protection of our crops, soil health, food safety, traceability, labor improvement, so any technology that can help us to digitalize and transform our operation to make us a stronger company. And the third area which is something very close to my heart, and I become very passionate about it, it's the technology that can help us to deliver our six promises. Back in 2019, we have made a very strong and bold commitment to deliver strong promises better for the people with accessible access to nutrition for 1 billion people by 2025. better for the planet where we're working towards zero food loss in our door drums. aiming for zero CPU based packaging by 2025, working toward zero net zero carbon emission in our own operation baseline 2030. And finally better for our stakeholders where we are continuously trying to positively impact our farmers and their communities and the people working for those companies. So six big promises to be delivered very soon, we won't be able to do it without the support and the help of companies like Tyson Foods and other startups moving towards entrepreneurs. So those are all the different areas that we are, we are looking at as long as it's technology driven, and the innovation really help us to move forward and sorry for the wrong answer.

Vonnie Estes, IFPA

No, that's, that's a huge mandate. That's really exciting. I see why there's so much to talk about. Elid had a question for you. We've been lucky to have you as one of our inaugural members of our Fresh Field Catalyst. And you've been part of the program this year, can you give people an idea of kind of how that's been and how that's been useful for you?

Elad Mardix, Clarifruit

Sure. So I think I see two key advantage values to gain through this, the IFPA Tech Accelerator program. I think the first one is access to a lot of perspectives and thoughts from some of the industry leaders, whether they are big buyers in the industry, whether they are retailers, or whether they are suppliers in this industry. And I think they shared they've been, we've only been doing it for I think three or four months now, right, Ronnie days, but we've already had some amazing conversations with people who shared their challenges. And more importantly, from our perspective, is how they think about technology, adoption of technology, and essentially, what do technology providers like startups or otherwise, how they should approach those players in order to facilitate essentially, a successful sale and deployment with these guys. And I think those perspectives are very unique. You know, usually, when I go and speak to a customer, it's hard to get these kinds of perspectives in first or even second meeting, because there's always the sales tension between the two parties. And so this program actually gives us this unique access to these insights. The second, the second big value for us, has been actually the on the road week that we spent with you and the team, I think about six or eight weeks ago, in in the West Coast. And that was an amazing way to open this program, get to meet in person, some of those players that I just talked about, but more importantly, actually go to go to their fields, go to the packing houses, go to the distribution center, see how things work out and speak to some of the people that actually do the daily work. And I think it gives great perspective on the existing challenges. It allowed me to expand my network, and think through some other opportunities that I didn't appreciate before. So I think it's a great program. I also think that as opposed to some other accelerator programs that exist in the overall tech market, you know, you and a team Vani are bringing real, tangible relationships with some of the leading players in the supply chain. And that's going to that's going to go a long way to all of the participants in this program. So thank you for that.

Vonnie Estes, IFPA

Great, thank you. That was it was I hadn't asked you that question before. So it's really nice to hear your thoughts there. And I think that's, that's a lot of what we think about is just really coming at this from a solution space, you know, what does our industry need and bringing in companies that have solutions and having discussions like that? And so, it's, it's been really interesting, and a lot of those companies that you visited, and that you've met through us are really appreciative, you know, because they get so many people knocking on their doors constantly. And so they've been really appreciative to us to FPGA for, for bringing a group in in this way where they have time to sit down kind of outside the sales cycle and really learn about the technology. So that's kind of gone both ways. You know, they've been really really appreciative of having that opportunity to. So thanks for that. So one last question each for each of you, Barbara, if you can kind of summarize what are three things that you want to invest in and kind of problems you want to find solutions for?

Barbara Guerpillon, Dole

That's a very, very tough question. I think what really keeps me awake at night is definitely our constant. Look for solution to reduce our carbon footprint and reduce our environmental impact. So solutions, which will be today called nature based solutions, solutions will help us to reduce and secretary to carbon footprint that were a meeting, or definitely one thing that we want to unlock. The second is around, again, the soil, if we have improved, we protect our soil and have healthier soil will have better product, therefore better nutrition for our consumers. And I think maybe the third area, it's more about looking at interesting ideas or business models that can really make the circular economy working. And improving how we can deliver back value to all our stakeholders within our entire supply chain. So that's an agree with you, it's a little bit vague, but it is something that we are struggling with, we have been in our ways, for example, we know what to do with this, we can send it to biogas can create energy, we can upcycle it is still a challenge for us to transport waste from one form to another before transformation. So we really haven't found the right approach or solution to those. I think that's that will be the three things. But frankly, there is a way more and depending on the view that may come up with different answers.

Vonnie Estes, IFPA

Great, thanks. And Elad, how about what are three things that you want people to know about Clarifruit?

Elad Mardix, Clarifruit

So I'd say the following number one. And we talked a little bit about it before, our software based solution is surprisingly, fairly easy to use, and relatively easy to deploy and actually doesn't require, you know, staff and teams on the ground spending hours and hours or weeks in order to deploy the software. So I think that's very important point for the potential listeners of this podcast, because people may think that, you know, this is going to be a big project, which involves a lot of in person and how do deployment, that's not going to be the case with Cloud foot. So fairly easy to use. Use case as well as deployment. Second point, which is probably the biggest challenge for most supply chain partners today is with technology adoption, it is based on what I hear from people is, is how, how compelling or how clear is the value that you're bringing, with your technology right to the customer. And I think that's something that we've been very focused on. And so when we engage with the customer, we essentially present a very clear ROI over the alternative, which is whatever they're doing today in order to perform a QC. And the good news is that I don't expect the customer to believe me, I'm actually happy to offer what we call a 30 day free trial to most of our customers. And in those 30 days in in this 30 day period, they actually have the opportunity to experience what we call the cloud foot magic, comparing it the way they do QC with Claro foods versus the alternative and actually come up with an ROI analysis, which is based on their own experience. And that's actually what we usually present together with the QC manager to the management of these customer after this career. So that's kind of point number two compelling ROI with the ability to actually experience or experience it on your own in a 30 day period without any cost And I think the last one I'll say is that we're working with the entire supply chain. I talked a little bit about the vision before, we do believe that the ultimate way to reduce waste in the fresh body supply chain is by standardizing the way quality is evaluated across the entire supply chain. We started with the marketing companies slash Packer shipper, the guy's kind of in the middle of the supply chain, we're going to be expanded into the downstream segments of this, ie retailers in the next couple of years. And after that, we will go upstream to the to the grower segment. But we're very excited about the opportunity. We just were in the finishing final touches of our a round, which we're going to announce soon, that's going to be a north of $10 million raise that we just successfully finished backed by a couple of big VCs. And we're going to expand globally including the US, Europe and Asia. And we're very excited to help this supply chain, reduce some of the wavelet taking place. And essentially creating a language that's going to allow all the participants speak the same language. That's really the goal.

Vonnie Estes, IFPA

Great, thanks. So Barbara, how can people get in touch with you, I'm sure there's all sorts of people listening that are convinced that they have a solution for you. So what's the best way for them to find you? You're on mute, somehow, you're on mute.

Barbara Guerpillon, Dole

I had an app. Sorry. Two years ago, we have created the sunshine for all funds, which is nothing but an investment fund is actually a fund dedicated to designing pilots between startups and old. It's a $2 million fund. And any startups can apply and submit their ideas and and present the ideas to us. You need to go on our website, those sunshine.com/partners or you can click on departments. But then scrolling down, you have a get in touch button. And that will basically lend directly into my mailbox. LinkedIn also works very well. There is no application data beginning or end it is really about being visible as getting to know you, and helping you to find the best people to talk with. Also, for the for the for the audience, people listening and started listening, it is happening that if your solution is either something we already have covered, or something which is too early for us to look at, we will definitely repeat that. So yeah, that's the best way. Great,

Vonnie Estes, IFPA

Thanks a lot. You're not hard to find. I don't think that what's the best way for people to get to you?

Elad Mardix, Clarifruit

Sure. So best would be actually to go to our website, www dot cloudy food.com. Actually, there is there is a button at the top right corner of this page, which says start a free trial. If you go there, you can register. And we have couple of questions that we're asking people. And if approved, you can actually go and experience the close with magic in a free trial, as I mentioned fairly quickly. So that will be the preferred way. I'm also happy for people or players in the industry who wants to learn more about our solution, they can reach out to me directly at a lot easier elad@clarifruit.com. And we're also going to be by the way, in the AFPA conference in Orlando and late October, we're going to have our own booth in the technology provider section. So really looking forward to seeing everyone there as well.

Vonnie Estes, IFPA

Great, thanks for that plug, I was going to do that to appreciate it. So thanks to both of you. It was really great. This is how technology gets adopted by you know having partnerships like this. So it's really exciting to hear how you're working with each other and and want to stay close and hear how this all goes. So thank you very much. So let me just close with observe that let me just close with thanking two of our sponsors. We had sponsors for the accelerator that companies that have really allowed us to do what we're doing with the accelerator and two of those that I want to recognize today. One is plenty and plenty is a leader in indoor vertical farming, which has produced amazing products both out of their South San Francisco farm and and are starting to produce products out of their competent farm and the other is produce Alliance which She is bringing innovation to procurement and category management in the fresh produce and food service. So thanks to both of those sponsors, and thanks to both of you and I will be seeing you soon. Thank you.