By Rebecca Vandersleen, Farms.com
As stated on June 18, 2015 by a press release from Chicken Farmers of Ontario, the poultry industry will soon be transitioning to a digital business platform. Poultry farmers in Ontario who are associated with Farm Fresh Poultry Co-operative Inc. will be involved in this transformation and will be the first in Canada to do so. This platform is referred to as CFO Connects, and is designed to improve time management and general effectiveness. Annually, Ontario’s poultry industry contributes around 3 billion dollars to the economy, and so this is an important step to ensure chicken farmers have a standardized and easy system to track transactions and keep costs and confusion to a minimum.
This system allows users to look up important information relating to the poultry industry and stay connected with business partners, other producers, and processors. The aim is to support and strengthen industry relationships and food tracking, which will create better risk management. Ontario is the largest value chain for poultry in Canada, with CFO representing over 1,100 chicken farmers and having a broad consumer base to support. They recognize the significance of understanding consumer’s needs, as the Chair of Chicken Farmers of Ontario Henry Zantingh stated, “Chicken farmers are making a bold statement about the importance of evolving and keeping ahead of consumer demands”. The out-dated process of poultry production, processing, and ordering involved burdensome paperwork that was often time consuming. By digitizing this process, information will be convenient to input and access whenever needed.
The plan is to later extend this system to the remainder of the industry over a period of 6 months. As explained by CFO President Rob Dougans “This change will simplify, streamline and standardize so much of what we are doing and that will mean greater efficiency and greater effectiveness for the industry.” This platform incorporates SAP information technology, ensuring they have some of the best enterprise resource planning solutions to support their business plan.