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25 October 2023 – Granlatte Granarolo Group and xFarm Technologies, the tech company helping the agri-food sector to go digital, have jointly developed an innovative digital platform that will immediately be made available to the supply chain of around 600 Granlatte dairy farmers to efficiently and sustainably manage their dairy farms.
The Granlatte General Management coordinated a working group focused on a sustainable transition of the supply chain led by the University of Brescia and supported by analyses conducted by the University of Bologna and the University of Milan. Important indicators related to environmental impact, cattle nutrition and animal welfare were identified. The vast experience of xFarm in the field and in the stable, together with the availability of advanced analysis, detection and prediction systems, met the need to collect and provide data.
“Promoting both environmental and economic sustainability through digital technology making the whole supply chain more efficient: this is our daily commitment to thousands of farmers and breeders. For the project we are carrying out together with Granlatte Granarolo, xFarm Technologies will develop further customised functions to improve agronomic practices and measure sustainability. The defining element of the project will be the integration, and therefore the usability, of all data in a single platform to guarantee each stakeholder a comprehensive view of the sustainability of the entire supply chain,” says Samuele Ricciardi, Agrifood Execution Consultant at xFarm Technologies and leader of the project.
“To meet the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets proposed by the 2030 Agenda, Granlatte has embarked on an ambitious project to support the Group’s ecological transition. Advanced modelling techniques, evidence available in the literature, and the guidance of experienced researchers will make it possible in the coming months to explore optimal business management scenarios for each dairy farm with the main objective of a progressive reduction of the cooperative’s carbon footprint up to the target levels defined by the 2030 Agenda,” said Isaia Puddu, General Manager of Granlatte. “The tool is useful for the Group to measure sustainability and to identify pathways to improve it, but the cooperative is working especially to make it a valuable ally for Granlatte’s social base because it optimises the business performance of its breeder members and offers clear evidence of their great work on sustainability to their stakeholders as well.”
The project with Granlatte, which involves around 600 milk producers in 12 Italian regions, has a duration of five years.
The need to monitor and reduce the environmental footprint, as well as to improve animal welfare, and the will to enhance the steps taken in this direction, also in the eyes of the end consumer, have pushed Granlatte Granarolo to take up the digital challenge. To support the company in achieving its goals, xFarm Technologies implemented a platform with customised and specific features for the Granlatte Granarolo supply chain. The platform was developed in collaboration with the University of Brescia, which has developed proprietary algorithms to provide indicators capable of guiding the improvement of agronomic and environmental practices. The platform, which can be used both by computer and mobile phone, will therefore integrate data and metrics from the entire supply chain: from the livestock farms’ field notebooks to the quantity of milk delivered and the quality of each individual associate. This will simplify not only the storage of metrics but also the processing of reports.
Thanks to the new technologies adopted, the usual internal auditing activities will also be more efficient. In order to improve the welfare of their herds and the quality of their output, the individual dairy farms united in a cooperative will be able to count not only on the advice of Granlatte Granarolo’s consultants, who regularly visit their stables and factories, but also on the support of the platform developed in collaboration with xFarm Technologies.
Through the analysis of the collected data and the development of new algorithms, the University of Brescia, as research partner of the project, will also be called upon to identify further indicators (KPIs) to improve environmental sustainability and animal welfare along the supply chain in a process aimed at continuous improvement.
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