Tyson Foods tags five startups to focus on supply chain innovation

Tyson Ventures, the venture capital arm of Tyson Foods, recently held its annual pitch event for startups using technology to improve the supply chain and selected five companies to work with the Springdale-based meat giant over the next several months.

The five companies will work with Tyson Foods’ officials to discuss applications and potential scaling for the right scenarios.

This is the third year Tyson held a Demo Day event at its home office in Springdale that focuses on helping the company create a better food system. The criteria of this year’s demo day – held July 17 – was innovation and supply chain enhancements. The Tyson panel heard pitches from 12 companies offering a variety of technology solutions.

“Transformational solutions come from all over, and to see so much strategic potential in one place was inspiring,” said Heidi Solomon, vice president of global strategy for Tyson Foods. “When protein supply chains become more efficient, we can all do more to feed the world like a family and fulfill our corporate mission. The global reach and scale of Tyson Foods can help these companies apply their groundbreaking solutions to make a difference.”

Tyson said the presenting companies hailed from seven states, Canada and the United Kingdom, with supply-chain technology solutions that included artificial intelligence, cold chain management, cloud platforms, fleet management, recyclable materials, software and freezing technology.

The Tyson Foods panel represented a cross-functional group of employees involved in the company’s supply chain. The panel listened to the pitches and selected the following five startups to work with Tyson for possible work with supply chain applications.

• Bentonville-based Paradigm Labs manufactures freezing equipment that uses acoustic waves to create nano-sized crystals, preserving food’s quality, taste and texture.
• Washington-based JLE Truckwash provides premium fleet cleaning solutions that are customized for distribution centers and trucking terminals.
• California-based Orderful is a modern EDI (electronic data interchange) platform that allows retailers to integrate once and start trading with partners in nine days or less, making EDI efficient, cost-effective and scalable.
• California-based Pactum AI is a software-as-a-service solution that enables enterprise companies to optimize value by automating supplier negotiations through AI-driven processes.
• New York-based SnoFox is a software platform focused on optimizing system performance, maintenance activities and energy usage for industrial refrigeration.

Since its inception in 2016, Tyson Ventures has invested more than $100 million in emerging proteins, new technologies for food and worker safety and improved food production.