Last month, the Reservoir officially opened its innovation hub for specialty crops, Reservoir Farms in Salinas, Calif. Founder and CEO Danny Bernstein says since the first announcement last June, there has been much forward momentum.
Bernstein sat down with The Packer to talk about the future of the Reservoir and to share some success stories of some of the startups involved in the incubator.
Shift Toward Crop Specific Solutions
Looking to the future, Bernstein says a lot of the conversations at the Reservoir have focused on becoming more crop-specific and having more nuanced conversations at a crop level. Bernstein says this Producer Program, which will be announced in greater detail soon, looks to a niche spot in the ag tech ecosystem.
“How do we better serve the end grower, the end producer, the end shipper with more specific programs and narratives that speak at their level, which is more crop specific?” he says.
Take a commodity like strawberries, Bernstein says. A large strawberry grower likely has some internal proprietary research and development, but there’s a strong need for crop-specific solutions, and that’s where the Reservoir sees the opportunity to assist.
“It’s not critical enough to be proprietary, but it’s critical enough to be prioritized and therefore needs the industry,” he says.
Bernstein says he sees this scenario playing out similarly for key crops such as vegetables and leafy greens, as well as strawberries, in Salinas, viticulture in Sonoma, Calif., etc. He says the Reservoir team is working to pull together what a crop-specific ag tech program would look like and then bring the right stakeholders to the table.
“We want to have a leafy greens-specific ag tech program, a strawberry-specific ag tech program, and then eventually that becomes brassicas and maybe even a click down further into just broccoli,” he says.
While the Reservoir is working to recruit ag tech companies into the incubators, Bernstein says the team is also looking at what ag tech companies are a fit for these more nuanced offerings.
Bernstein says that the Reservoir is engaging with more than 300 companies all around the world; some are a part of the incubator programs, but he says the larger number speaks to the breadth of the Reservoir.
“We can share a pipeline of 300 companies with companies with the growers that we’re actively engaged with,” he says. “We can categorize [the companies]. We can talk about their different technology readiness levels. We can say which crops they’re focused on. We can share a pretty detailed matrix. Then, we can also set up structured introductions.”
Meeting Growers Where They Are
Looking ahead, Bernstein says he sees a strong need for field marketing, which he says ag tech is a little behind in getting on board with.
“We’re wondering if a little bit more of meeting the grower where they are [is needed], thinking really crop-specific,” he says.
Bernstein envisions almost a concert tour with solutions targeted specifically at the predominant crops in a geo-location.
“Bringing the right companies to the right crop at the right time in their cycle — that’s another element that we’re thinking a lot about, that we’re really trying to put the producer first in our model,” he says.
And Bernstein says the ag tech industry desperately needs to accelerate technology outcomes for the specialty crop grower.
“I feel like the ag tech buyer is becoming more discerning and has a pretty good risk appetite, because they are getting better and better at assessing the efficacy of ag tech,” he says. “This is an area that we want to lean into more and more with our producer partners, and that’s part of why we’re doing this program.”
Proving the Ag Tech Work Ethic
Another thing that Bernstein says has come out of the Reservoir is debunking this myth that the work ethic of ag tech companies is different from that of the growers those companies hope to create solutions for. But he says the team at Agtom, a farm automation platform for irrigation, fertigation and more, has proved that being a part of the Reservoir incubator and having real-time access to specialty crops has its benefits.
Bernstein says the team works six days a week, working from around 9 a.m. to nearly 3 a.m. the next morning. He says the team says the Reservoir has been an ideal working environment, with the ability to test in strawberry fields and make modifications immediately.
“They have the work ethic. They have the drive,” he says. “We’ve been able to provide a platform with a work environment that allows them to accelerate.”
Another one, Bernstein says, is BHF, a Canadian ag robotics company. He says as a result of participating in the Reservoir’s incubator, growers have been more likely to trial the company’s solutions. He says it speaks volumes to how important ag tech companies see being boots on the ground in California. He adds that BHF has trials set up with major vegetable growers in the Salinas area thanks to this approach.
“We’ve seen not only companies be able to get themselves on rails with being inside of our environment, but we’ve also seen some acceleration of commercialization, because, basically, folks are able to show that they’re leading with humility, that they’re integrating,” Bernstein says. “And BHF, as a Canadian company, basically said, ‘We need to be in California to accelerate,’ and now it’s starting to happen.”
