Can AI predict disruptions in the food supply chain?

A platform allows users to plan for supply shortages and price fluctuations

Spotted: With global supply chains suffering from increasing political and climate risks, reducing uncertainty is critical for maintaining frictionless trade in key agricultural products. To this end, Helios AI generates accurate predictions of price and availability so that businesses can plan and adapt accordingly.

By assessing daily risks for more than 50 fruits and vegetables across 90 per cent of the globe, Helios’s platform forecasts crop availability and significant price changes weeks or months in advance. From commodity traders and large consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies down to local restaurants, any business involved in the agricultural supply chain can shift their buying patterns ahead of forecasted constraints.

Existing supply chain analysis for this purpose tends to be reactive rather than predictive, largely because companies rely heavily on word-of-mouth warnings and outdated, generic government reports. In contrast, Helios’ sophisticated AI-powered forecasting ability digests billions of data points, including half a million daily news articles across 60,000 global sources to track potentially significant events every 15 minutes. Users receive personalised weekly insights that focus on the crops and countries most important to their business.

Springwise has spotted other innovations helping the food industry build greater climate resilience, including modular protective greenhouses and satellites that predict extreme weather for farmers in the tropics.

Written By: Duncan Whitmore