Farmer’s Choice has been delivering quality meat products to Kenyan tables for the last 40 years. The customer-oriented company uses advanced technologies with the existing agriculture ecosystem to enhance productivity, ensure food safety and quality, and reduce waste. Its commitment to sustainable farming practices began with the adoption of collaborative Microsoft 365 solutions. Next, the organization extended its cloud portfolio to include Microsoft Dynamics 365 and is now stepping up its services with Microsoft Power Apps.
“Everything starts from the initial data capture on the farms,” says Eric Muga, Senior Database Administrator at Farmer’s Choice. “We have IoT readers that capture data to use with Dynamics 365 Customer Service.” The cloud-based solution streamlines the information flow between all departments, making vital data accessible to all users. “The procurement management needs to see what is happening on the farms. And the farm management system is completely outside of where we are seated,” Kinuthia explains. “So, everybody connects to a central location to upload the captured data and work with it.”
The company’s tech stack also includes automation, which runs on Azure and minimizes human error. “Previously, a person would weigh animals and write down the scores manually. This could lead to missing weights or incorrect data that jeopardized decision-making,” says Muga. “Now, we capture data directly from the main scale, without human intervention, in real time and with virtually no errors.”
Accurate tracking and recordkeeping also benefits suppliers, who can keep pace with fluctuating inventory levels to match customer expectations. “We can move fast through operations, updating the system in real time. We give our salespeople mobile devices so they can take orders and communicate to customers what products are available on the floor,” says Annie Mugumo, Management Accountant at Farmer’s Choice. “This leads to happier customers.”
From a financial perspective, the cloud-based infrastructure generates significant savings. “There have been some running costs in our IT department, like server maintenance or storage. These are now things of the past,” Kinuthia observes.
