McCain Foods has launched a new grower pilot program, supported by Oakland, California-headquartered Cerel AI, focused on improving field-level visibility, decision-making, and coordination across its North American potato supply network.
The program gives McCain teams and growers a shared, consistent view of crop performance throughout the season, using data-driven insights to help identify variability earlier and prioritize attention where it matters most.
Across distributed grower operations, field insights are often fragmented or delayed, making it difficult to align decisions, target field visits, and respond quickly to emerging challenges. This program aims to address those gaps by creating a simple, scalable way to support visibility and decision-making across participating contracted acres.
Through the program, growers and McCain personnel will have access to continuous field-level visibility driven by clear, actionable insights that highlight where attention is needed most. These insights help highlight areas within fields that may require additional attention, supporting growers and agronomy teams in focusing scouting efforts, prioritizing actions, and improving in-season decision-making to enable more coordinated action throughout the season.
“Through this grower pilot program, we are working to provide our growers with better visibility into their fields and more targeted support during the season,” said Jeremy Buchman, director of agronomy at McCain Foods. “By aligning our teams and growers around a shared view of performance, we can act earlier, focus on the right areas, and improve outcomes together.”
Ceres AI supports the program by translating field-level data into clear, actionable insights that align with McCain’s existing workflows and systems. This ensures that insights are not only visible but also directly support how teams and growers make decisions day to day.
“At its core, this work is about helping growers and McCain teams make better decisions, faster at scale,” said Anubhav Sharma, head of marketing at Ceres AI. “By turning complex field data into clear insights, we are supporting focused scouting, better coordination, and more effective decision-making across participating acres, in a way that aligns with McCain’s broader agricultural goals over time.”
The initiative reflects a broader shift toward more connected, data-driven agriculture, where growers and enterprises operate from a shared understanding of field performance rather than disconnected observations.
