Innovation

Investment in innovation and technology continues to drive our strategic growth plans forward, as we work to shape a secure and sustainable future of food and agricultural production.

Digitalization remained a key focus in 2021, as a lever for significant efficiency, security and transparency gains. 

In February 2021, our joint initiative with industry peers, Covantis, launched a transformational blockchain platform for global trade execution that connects shippers, traders and charterers. Since then, the new tech platform’s product portfolio and user network have steadily grown, modernizing the way our industry manages post-trade execution processes. 

Throughout the year, we also continued to invest in applications enabling better connectivity among supply chain stakeholders, while supporting market intelligence, compliance and trading efficiencies and driving operational efficiency from farm to port. Examples include our service agreement with Circular, facilitating grain logistics in Argentina, new developments for our existing Carguero road freight platform in Brazil, and the start of grains and oilseeds origination activities through digital platform Grão Direto in Brazil.  

We deployed assisted reality devices across three platforms to drive productivity and safety gains at 20 of our largest industrial facilities, by enabling remote assistance and maintenance. In parallel, we continued to augment manual tasks through robotic process automation across additional shared service center processes (12 in the final quarter of 2021 alone). 

We also continued to rely on remote sensing capabilities to monitor and respond to severe weather conditions. During a severe frost in Brazil, our data scientists leveraged LDC’s Research Repository tech platform to access near real-time frost impact area assessments and mobilize Sugar and Coffee business teams accordingly.  

In line with our vision to contribute to the global effort of providing sustenance for a growing population, we also continued to invest in innovations and technologies with the potential to transform global food and agricultural production for the future.  

We partnered with the Swiss chapter of MassChallenge, a global accelerator connecting innovative start-ups with investors, to explore breakthrough solutions to critical challenges in food and agricultural supply chains. 

Our corporate venture capital program, LDC Innovations, completed three new investments, advancing the production of innovative and sustainable food and ingredients with Gathered Foods, Comet Bio and Motif FoodWorks, with a healthy pipeline of additional deals lined up. 

Finally, 2021 saw LDC lay the foundations for entry to the plant proteins market, hiring a team of researchers, engineers, marketers and other experts, and investing in a research and development laboratory in California, US, inaugurated in March 2022.