McCain Foods announces new business unit to help food manufacturers improve regenerative agriculture

TORONTO — McCain Foods announces the launch of Presia Ag Insights. A newly formed business unit wholly owned by McCain, Presia is the result of collaboration to develop digital technologies, supporting farmers in building resiliency within their operations.

With Presia, farmers and crop-sourcing partners can evaluate and predict crop yields, optimize harvest timing and enhance on-farm sustainability practices. Specializing in satellite-based, data-driven intelligence that can transform the way we understand crop growth, Presia will 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,” says 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 the predictive crop portfolio from Resson in 2022. That portfolio 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 predictive crop intelligence portfolio joined McCain in June 2022; over the past year, the team — and product — has continued to evolve and is excited to launch under the Presia banner.

“Presia supports our farmer and crop-sourcing partners in building resiliency within their operations and strengthening decision-making capabilities through the use of satellite imaging and machine learning,” says Tyler Hennick, Managing Director of Presia. “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.”

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.

The insights from Presia’s data and models will help its customers better manage their crops, support earlier yield estimates with greater accuracy, and improve crop monitoring and sampling efficiency. 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,” says Mr. Hennick. “We are getting more data on region and variety-specific nuances to inform our modelling and can work with our partners to measure the indicators that matter to them most.”