GrainPro

Project Overview

As part of my work with Riffle Ventures, I led this business strategy project with GrainPro, a leading agricultural commodities storage provider. The goal of the project was to devise and recommend a compostable bioplastics strategy with a focus on short, medium and long-term goals.

Background

GrainPro is the leading expert in post-harvest handling and storage solutions for agricultural commodities like coffee beans, maize, and other grains. The existential threat to GrainPro's business model is the company's use of plastic solutions to provide high-quality hermetic storage and transport. With increasing global concern about the negative impact of single-use plastics, finding alternatives to traditional fossil-fuel based plastic solutions is a key priority for GrainPro, as well as developing collections and recycling partners globally.

Process & Research

My process included creating a project plan outlining the scope of the work, including why it’s important for GrainPro to tackle the issues around fossil fuel-based plastics. The project scope is outlined below:

Phase I: Baseline (1 week)

Understand overall GP goals and objectives, including technical/business considerations and specifications. Collect existing GP research on bioplastics, including information on current compostable/recyclible materials research and development (ex. hermetic small pouch)

Phase II: Research (6 weeks)

Secondary research: Identify relevant industry reports, market studies, and online sources to gain insights into the current state of the industry. Primary Research: Interview and gather data directly from industry experts, consumers, or key stakeholders

Phase III: Synthesis (2 weeks)

Synthesize findings and identify trends and patterns, such as, emerging trends, patterns, or gaps in the bioplastics industry. This will include opportunities and challenges, growth areas, regulatory factors, or technological advancements

Phase IV: Report (1 week)

Report writing and presentation: present insights and recommendations, which included summary of current and future trends, as well as potential partners' recommendations for current, near future, and long term solutions of bioplastics for GrainPro’s product lines

Outcomes

The deliverables for this project included a sustainable innovation report with next steps outlined, along with a final presentation deck that was presented to the board of directors of GrainPro. Additionally, I connected GrainPro to a software start-up, Reath, which helps companies set-up, manage, and maintain reusable packaging systems.

Successes

This project pushed me to develop my research skills, and increased my ability to align objectives across stakeholders such as the board of directors, sales & marketing, and R&D/product development. It gave me an opportunity to craft a narrative in the final pitch deck that was compelling and drove action by the board of directors. In the process, I created visually compelling and easy to understand slides.

Challenges

I was forced to learn new skills for this project, such as creating a project proposal and completing a research report.