Incredible new technologies and products are being launched across the potato value chain, including this entry from WSA Solutions.
We put a call out requesting nominations for the most innovative products leading the Canadian potato industry into the future. Our team received multiple excellent nominations from across the potato industry. With help from our Editorial Board, we selected the winning nominations based on their impact to the industry, their market potential and their scalability.
Over the next few weeks, we will be highlighting the individual innovations. They will be released alphabetically.
PATH
WSA Solutions
www.wsapath.com
Launched in Canada: PATH 2.0 (fully rewritten from PATH 1.0) launched in 2021.
PATH is a potato specific application that simplifies production’s many administrative jobs.
“We’ve felt the firsthand pains of creating invoices, labels, confirmations, C-PIQs, tracking GAP compliance etc.,” says Feije de Boer, partner at WSA Solutions. “We believed there had to be a better way: a single system to track everything that happens within the ecosystem of a farm from the time you start to think about planting to the time that potato ends up on a customer’s plate.”
PATH tracks every stage of the product from planting, inputs, harvest, storage inventory, grading, sizing, sorting, sales, shipping, compliance and everything in-between. According to WSA Solutions, users report a significant amount of time saved, fewer mistakes, clearer communication within their teams, clearer insight into what team members are doing, greater accountability, and less overall stress.
“Enter it once and consider it done,” says de Boer.
PATH works on any internet enabled device including computers, tablets, and smart phones.
PATH is a big step up from generic farm tracking software.
“Take potato wart for example,” says de Boer. “Suddenly new requirements are passed down to growers. PEI producers need to supply dates that they applied sprout inhibitor and also now track each regulated field in storage. PATH makes it easy, and we were able to quickly respond to these changes. One customer was able to ship across the U.S. border again within a few days after having their management plan accepted —they could prove that with PATH they were able to easily identify and separate their inventories of regulated product. Recently we worked with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to allow PATH users to automatically submit their C-PIQ forms to a new CFIA portal, saving them time and mistakes. These are the kind of features you won’t see in a generic sort of software.”
This year’s line-up of Top Innovations is a great list! We will be introducing one Winner each week. So far, we’ve introduced:
AL-Bio 7- A&L Biological Inc. – subsidiary of A&L Canada Laboratories Inc.
Vive Crop Protection – AZteroid FC
John Deere – John Deere 8 Series Tractor Electric Power Generation with Spudnik AirSep harvester
