AgSights: Together we are Better

Together we are better: Associate member AgSights

By Lois Harris

Betty-Jo Almond’s family developed a new saying over the holidays that neatly sums up her approach to business, as well: together we are better.

Almond is the General Manager for AgSights, a non-profit cooperative that helps its members – including farmers and meat processors – gather, analyse and interpret data more easily so they can be more productive and successful.

“I think collaborating is where you get the best benefit,” she says, adding that she’s a big fan of listening to others and sharing ideas. She’s convinced that, by working together, whether personally or professionally, everyone can better mitigate their frustrations and have more positive experiences.

AgSights has been around since 1993, so it has a deep well of knowledge and experience in the agri-food industry. There are six full-time employees and one person on contract.

The company operates across North America, and is pursuing opportunities internationally.

During the pandemic, most of the demand for AgSight’s information management systems from meat processors focused on employee safety and inventory management. A new version of the bioLinks system is being developed that has an enhanced e-commerce aspect to it.

“With people more and more focused on local, there needs to be an on-line platform so people can get access to products,” she says.

The new version will include an integration that will help with branding a business’s online presence, and connect directly with existing bioLinks systems to better manage inventory and ensure stocks are sufficient for orders. Among AgSights members are VG Meats, Italia Salami Company, Bella Roma Foods and Celtic Ridge Farms.

While the co-operative has always collaborated with different organizations, businesses and universities across the country, in 2013, it got more deeply into meat processing. At the time, Alberta Agriculture had a pilot project in which a technology was developed called Food Inventory Tracking & Sales (FITS). The project was coming to an end, and the people involved wanted to see it sustained into the future.

AgSights, along with VG Meats, was very impressed with the product, which was an inventory and sales tracking tool. By adding on existing production tracking technology, meat cuts could be traced right back to the animal on the farm. “The goal was to provide small to medium businesses with a portable solution so they could use them at farmers markets and deliveries and so on,” Almond says. AgSights re-branded it as bioLinks.

It’s customizable, easy to use, and provides end-to-end tracking with which owners and managers can maintain inventory, increase efficiency, get rid of some of the headaches that come with administrative errors, and free up their time to grow their businesses. It’s also less expensive than some of the other products that are on the market.

AgSights is continually innovating – looking for pain points in businesses, and coming up with solutions to relieve them.

“We’re always looking for member feedback on what’s working and what’s not,” she says, adding that, as a non-profit, AgSights can apply for government funding to research and bring innovative ideas to fruition.

Almond says that, most of the time, meat businesses are looking for a way to establish an online commercial presence.

“Once you have that, you can move on to having an inventory tracking solution that connects with the online presence,” she says.

Demand for AgSights products has not waned over the course of the pandemic and, in fact, has gone up.

“People are looking for tools to make their lives better,” she says. Businesses currently using bioLinks vary in size and their own business practices. Almond is looking forward to supporting many more, once a new, more robust bioLinks system is launched in the spring of 2021.

Many AgSights members are also members of Meat & Poultry Ontario. “We also have Go360bioTrack, which is our on-farm system,” she says, explaining that the RFID (radio frequency identification) numbers embedded in cattle’s ear tags are the link between the records for animals on the farm and the processing facility.

Almond thinks that, going forward, competition in local markets will heat up and that an online presence will be a must for meat processors.

“Being an associate member of MPO is a great way to support our members and really helps in terms of collaborating to come up with solutions,” she says.

There are hundreds of members in AgSights because it offers many other services. For example, the co-operative does all the genetic evaluations on beef cattle for the province of Quebec. “Our role is to think through the challenges that meat processors face, and work on ways to make their lives easier, so they can focus on improving meat quality for consumers,” she says. “Whatever solutions we provide have to enhance the integrity of what businesses are already doing, build trust with customers and add value to the industry.”

Betty-Jo Almond 294 Mill St EastSuite 209 Elora, ON N0B 1S0 (519) 767-2665