Merqato is an AI-powered predictive analytics platform that matches supply and demand for better margins and less
A Dutch startup has developed a forecasting tool to help produce companies with one of the most important and challenging tasks in the industry: matching supply and demand volumes. Merqato is an AI-powered platform designed exclusively for fresh fruits and vegetables that its creators say can improve forecasting accuracy by at least 25 per cent.
“All companies in the industry struggle with variability and uncertainty in both supply and demand. Every mismatch costs significant amounts of money,” co-founder Jan-Willem Snoeker tells Fruitnet.
“We tackle that challenge head on: we have developed a solution specifically for fresh fruit and vegetables, that uses AI, your historical data and data from partners across the world to give you the insights you need to make the best decisions every day. We improve your forecasting accuracy, increase the forecast window and optimise the matching process. For the customers we work with we have demonstrated we can improve forecasting accuracy by at least 25 per cent while extending the timeline by 4-6 weeks.”
The result, says Snoeker, is that customers know longer in advance and more accurately what volumes they can expect. “They also no longer have to spend hours every day in excel, copying and pasting data between teams. This improved matching leads to lower costs and less time spent on this process, which is exactly what the industry needs.”
Unlike other forecasting tools on the market, Merqato is built exclusively around fruit and vegetables with the collaboration of experts such as Wageningen University. Because fresh produce has a limited shelf-life and the supply chain is production driven, both supply and demand needs to be forecast in order to optimise volume allocation.
“At Merqato we combine excellent harvest models based on agronomic expertise with state-of-the-art demand planning algorithms,” Snoeker says. “Right from the start we have invested a lot in building our data position. Our algorithms are trained on large datasets in Europe and South America, by working with customers and partners in Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and Peru.”
The platform uses three main data inputs: historical customer datasets, external data such as weather, trade volumes and market data and data from partners. By way of example, Snoeker points to a recently developed model for forecasting strawberry volumes.
“We used five years of our customers’ production and sales data, and then added specific strawberry growth models and various data sources such as data from weather stations, trade volumes and retail sales. Put together this led to an increase in forecast accuracy of over 25 per cent for our customer (compared to forecasting without Merqato),” he explains, adding that similar models have been designed for blueberries, taking into account volumes from different hemispheres through data partnerships.
Right now, the platform is focused mainly on berries, tomatoes and beans and covers the European market. It will soon be expanding into more products such as peppers, grapes and avocados – and Snoeker says he’s open to discussing other market or product needs.
He says the response from the industry has been very positive, and the platform is already being used in the Netherlands, Spain and the UK.
“There is a big push to better forecasting and matching due to many different factors: climate change, for example, is making forecasting ever more difficult. Availability is key for supplying to retail and so our customers want to improve that,” he says.
“We also see that legislation such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive will put increased scrutiny on supply chain efficiency. Finally, labour shortages mean that planning how to optimise the workforce is crucial to margins. Our solution will really help the industry deal with all these challenges and even allow them to improve profitability.
“We see a future where our platform makes supply chains more demand driven, with less risk pushed upstream and more transparent and fair price mechanisms.”
Merqato will be at Fruit Attraction at 1B04C.
