Chicken Farmers of Ontario is the first major commodity board in the country to effectively digitize its up and down stream value chain so that all aspects of this $3 billion chicken industry, from hatcheries, to farmers, to transporters to processors, are electronically linked within the same system.
Called CFO Connects, the online system was developed with funding support from Growing Forward 2 to help the chicken industry simplify, streamline, and standardize how the Ontario industry does business.
Traditionally, Ontario chicken farmers worked on a labour intensive hand-written paper system. They received production allocation, placed hatchery orders for chicks, shipped market-ready birds, and received processed chicken confirmations through a cumbersome and often repetitive form-based process that tracked the birds as they moved through the system.
Now, CFO Connects has moved all of those transactions and record-keeping onto an online SAP-based platform. The new system has had many benefits including improved food traceability, streamlined record-keeping and has boosted overall industry efficiency.
Given the complexity of the industry, CFO carefully managed the transition to the new platform on a processor-by-processor basis over a series of successive quota periods. This ensured that the ‘onboarding’ was handled in a controlled way and the implementation team was able to adopt and apply any learnings to the next group being brought into the system.
To assist farmers with the transition, the organization created a CFO Connects Support Team to provide a series of easy-to-access training and support options including a 24 hour hotline to handle any overnight transaction issues. CFO also developed numerous ‘how-to’ videos, conducted in-person workshops and hosted a series of webinars to help farmers and processors familiarize themselves with the new system.
Growing Forward 2 is a federal-provincial-territorial initiative. The Agricultural Adaptation Council assists with the delivery of GF2 programming in Ontario.
Source: AAC