The Company has a 20-year reputation as an award-winning grower and global distributer of speciality fresh produce to retailers and wholesalers. The Company has a global brand and reach, meaning it can essentially sell all the produce it can access, so its business model is centred on securing as much high-quality produce as possible. The Company has strategically sourced and partnered with growers from across four continents who harvest at different times of the year and this, in addition to the produce from its own recently acquired farms, provides the Company with all-year-round supply of fresh produce, giving it a distinct advantage in its market.
We were engaged by the Company to appraise and value its critical IP assets ahead of it seeking growth finance to fund the launch of a new B2C offering in Asia.
Utilizing our Metisology® approach, we identified the critical IP assets that underpin the Company’s unique market position. The Company’s brand has a 20-year history of being at the forefront of innovation in its market, and for providing retailers and consumers with consistently high-quality food produce. Its commitment to technology and transparency of supply promotes consumer confidence, and our analysis showed that this was a key driver for recurring revenue.
The Company has also invested significantly in its brand positioning as being a brand committed to improving quality standards, transparency and accountability up and down the supply chain. The Company’s integration of blockchain enables it to capture extensive data on its produce, including tracking from seed to shipping, which means it can demonstrate provenance of all produce to retailers, and ultimately consumers. This technology also gives growers full transparency over where, how and at what price their produce is sold, providing assurances that they are getting a fair deal. Our analysis showed that this additional level of transparency was incentivizing growers to sell more or all of their produce to the Company, and this additional access to supply was a key advantage over competitors.
The Company has created extensive key organizational knowledge ranging from its SOP on food and growing standards; intel on exporting and importing produce, plants and seeds; and, importantly from its own test-farm sites. This organizational knowledge enables the Company to operate at each stage of the supply chain. In addition, it has secured exclusive and valuable nursery licences to test and grow new varieties of fresh produce on two continents, giving it access to exclusive and extensive supply, which together with the Company’s key organizational knowledge on growing, acts as a barrier to entry in this market.
Our report demonstrated that the Company’s expanding operations and its unique position in the market as grower, distributor and marketer has resulted in it developing a disruptive and valuable portfolio of IP rights, which is creating a strong competitive moat around the business.
IP Assets Valued: Key Organizational Knowledge, Brand & Reputation, Critical Partners & Suppliers, Valuable Blockchain-based Data
